


A Thousand Words

by battleshidge (Amiria_Raven)



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Artists, Blue as a dog, Lance is a drama queen, Lance uses watercolors and Keith uses oil paints, M/M, Mutual Pining, Red as a cat, Voltron General Big Bang 2017, artist + pet au, cat cafés and artists and coffees and pets and maybe a dash of fake dating?, mostly Lance POV, pidge is savage, warning for blood mention
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-09
Updated: 2017-08-09
Packaged: 2018-12-13 07:38:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 47,869
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11755137
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Amiria_Raven/pseuds/battleshidge
Summary: Lance’s amiable dog, an australian shepherd named Blue, has an unconventional way of making new friends. Unfortunately, this includes bowling over a random, if attractive, man in the park.Keith doesn’t particularly appreciate Blue’s way of making friends.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This entire fic was loosely inspired by my Miraculous Ladybug fic, _Tikki's New Friend_. Very loosely inspired. And it's also a sort of gift to my friend Erin, because she's the one who prompted me to write it months ago, and that's why I picked it as my General Big Bang fic. Today, my posting day, also happens to be her birthday!
> 
> Hap birf, erburr!
> 
> Check endnotes for tumblr links! Links to the accompanying art will be added when the pieces are posted!
> 
> PLEASE NOTE: I do use some Spanish in this fic, though not much. I ran it by a native speaker first before using any of it, and if you have any questions about it please let me know.

The first time he encountered the other grouchy artist, Lance could only think, _man, what the fuck is his problem and who pissed in his Cheerios this morning?_

It was a nice day, and Lance McClain was eager to get outside. There was this one particular spot in the park, a place where the creek widened and turned lazily to the south, that he’d been dying to paint for _months_. Since the weather was finally agreeable, Lance had gathered his sketchbook and a small set of watercolors just so he could map out the area. He’d make a few different mockups and show them to Hunk so he could help decide which view would make it to a canvas.

His energetic Australian Shepherd Blue knew the signs. Whenever he started to gather these small items, she knew he was going out. And she knew that she’d get to go out with him, if the way her tail wagged excitedly when he started to put his shoes on was any indication.

In her enthusiasm, she let out a sharp bark, and Lance dropped to a crouch quickly, shushing her with a grin. Blue immediately nuzzled against his face, and a laugh forced its way out.

“Shhh, girl, you know you’re not supposed to bark in the house!” he scolded gently, scratching behind her ear. She pressed into his touch, urging him to scratch the way she liked best. “I know you just wanna get out and go for a walk, and we _will_ , but you gotta be patient, Blue!”

She blinked her large blue eyes at him dolefully, a whine building in her throat. Lance groaned.

“C’mon, that’s not playing _fair_!”

He pushed himself up, trying to ignore the way that Blue blinked innocently up at him. Lance was positively _weak_ to those pleading eyes, though, and with a childish whine of his own, he reached for the leash hanging by the door.

Blue made an impatient sound and surged to her feet, lunging to twine around his legs. With another laugh, Lance carefully extricated himself from the excited canine. When he ruffled her fur and sought out her royal blue collar, she stilled. The Aussie managed to calm herself enough to sit and wait for Lance to attach the leash, though the vigorous movements of her tail shook her entire body.

That’s a good girl, Blue,” he chuckled, giving her another scratch behind her ear. “Now give me a few minutes to get everything in my bag and we’ll go, yeah?”

She made a soft noise in her throat, and Lance pushed himself to his feet to shove his sketching supplies into a ratty old blue backpack he kept near the door. A few discarded pens and pencils and candy wrappers littered the bottom, and still inside from one of his other numerous drawing excursions was another sketchbook. He just shifted it to fit his new one in, sliding in the watercolor set and a pouch with pencils and brushes before jogging back to the kitchen and pulling a bottle of water from his refrigerator and another from the pantry.

From the other room, he heard Blue whine and paw at the door impatiently.

“Hang on,” he called, rummaging for a snack in his cabinet behind a few other things on the shelf. His fingertips found some sort of foil packaging and he curled his hand around whatever it was, pulling it out. A candy bar sat in his hand, and Lance grinned triumphantly, tucking it in the pocket of his trusty green jacket before slipping back into the living room.

“You guys make so much noise,” a voice groaned, and Lance jumped a little.

“ _Pidgisita_ , don’t just sneak up on me like that!” he nearly squeaked, turning to where one of his roommates was completing her trek up the stairs. “And it was all Blue, I _told_ her to be quiet,” he gave the Aussie a look and she just barked again, turning her nose impatiently towards the door.

“Whatever,” she waved her hand dismissively, turning towards the kitchen. “I don’t ever hear Hunk when he leaves in the mornings, but somehow I always hear you.”

“You’re just extra in tune to me,” he waggled his eyebrows. “I can’t blame you. I just have that animal magnetism!”

With a disgusted look, she muttered, “It’s too early for this. I’m going to make some coffee. You’re going painting?” she eyed the bag sitting open in the recliner by the door.

Lance perked up instantly, his fingers itching to start working already. To hide it, he busied himself with stowing his water in the bag and responded, “Yeah! It’s a nice day, and I thought Blue would enjoy getting out for a while. There’s that spot in the park–”

“Yeah, yeah, the bend in the creek, right?” she stifled her yawn. “You’ve been going on about it for months. I’m glad you’re finally gonna do something about it.”

He zipped his bag with a pout and turned to face her. Lance opened his mouth to speak, and his jaw dropped indignantly when he saw her waving a hand dismissively at him, already entering the kitchen.

“I’ll have you know that I _‘go on_ ’ about nothing!” he cried. “Talking about the perfect scene for painting isn’t _‘going on_ ’, it’s artistic contemplation!”

“If you say so,” her voice sounded a little muffled from the kitchen, and even from the living room he could hear the sound of the coffee pot coming to life. Pidge appeared in the doorway then, leaning against it and looking at him with a bored expression. “I’d probably be more inclined to believe you if you didn’t use that excuse so often.”

“It’s not an excuse!”

“Keep telling yourself that, Lance, and maybe one day it will be true,” Pidge retorted dryly, but Lance could see the way one corner of her mouth had quirked up.

“It’s _always_ been true,” Lance sniffed, turning his nose up and his attention back to the blue bag in the recliner. He lifted it onto his shoulders and then knelt to give Blue another firm scratch behind her ears. “It’s always been true and it’s always gonna be true. You just don’t understand because you spend all your time with your computers and robots and whatnot.”

“Building sentient robots is an art of its own, and I’m going to make history. Mark my words, Lance,” she perked up and turned to look behind her, and without another word she reentered the kitchen. She reappeared moments later with a steaming mug cupped in her hands. “When Hunk and I finish the prototype we’re working on, you’re gonna be blown away.”

“I’m sure I will!” he found the end of Blue’s leash and pushed himself to his feet. “You guys are both geniuses. All I’ve got is art, but–”

“–when you finish your painting of the bend in the creek, we’ll be completely blown out of the water, I know.”

“That was _my_ line!”

“You’ve used the pun enough that I can see it coming from a mile away, Lance. Don’t sound so offended when we steal your lines after the hundredth time we’ve heard them. It’s not _my_ fault all of your paintings are watercolor and _of_ water.”

A loud whine punctuated the air even as Lance opened his mouth to speak again, and he bit back whatever he was going to say to pay attention to his antsy canine.

“Yeah, yeah, girl, we’re going!” he soothed her. With a final look at Pidge, who grinned smugly, he pointed and declared, “This isn’t over! But my girl Blue comes first!”

“Go,” Pidge made a shooing motion with her hand. “Go out with the only girl who can stand your company.”

“You’re a girl, too!” he shot over his shoulder as he unlocked the door. “Don’t pretend you aren’t flattered by my charm!”

“Lance, I’ve known you too long to even be surprised by anything you say or do,” her tone was flat. “Whatever charms you think you have were lost on me even before you threw up all over my shoes in eighth grade.”

His jaw dropped and he longed to bite out some sort of response, but Blue was eager with the door open already and she pulled him through it. Lance let himself be pulled as he scrambled to make sure the door slammed shut behind him.

He would never admit that he failed and the definitive snap of the door closing was pathetic compared to the satisfying thump he’d been aiming for.

Lance talked to Blue on the short trek to the park, just a few blocks over. She pranced excitedly ahead of him, pulling when he paused to gawk at a pretty blonde laughing through a coffee shop window. And again when he waved at a brunette carrying a chihuahua on the opposite sidewalk and stopped in offense when she turned her nose up and didn’t even give him a second glance. He complained to Blue then about how he couldn’t get close enough to the girls to use his charm, and Blue listened while impatiently pulling at the leash some more.

And then suddenly, as they crossed the street to the park, Blue’s impatient tugging turned sharp, and with a yelp, the leash was yanked from Lance’s grasp.

“Wha–no– _Blue_!”

With a playful bark, she charged forward, and Lance broke into a sprint after her. She had a head start, though, and to his dismay, she barreled straight for a guy in red plaid. He’d just pushed himself up from a spot by the small fish pond, shoved a book or something into his bag, and started walking towards them when the excitable canine pounced.

Lance heard a garbled, _“Fuck_!” as the guy went down.

“ _Shit_ ,” he breathed under his breath, slowing to a halt as the guy sat up, Blue happily nuzzling his face.

“What the _fuck_?!” the dude in red raised a hand to fend off her tongue, and Lance hurriedly reached forward to snatch her collar, pulling her gently back and wrapping his arms around her. A quick glance showed a beanie knocked askew, in a red that matched his plaid shirt, what must have been a mullet peeking out from beneath, and if it wasn’t for needing to apologize and a pair of piercing, _angry_ violet eyes, Lance probably would have remarked on it right then and there. Instead, Lance quickly turned his attention back to the Aussie in his arms.

“Blue, what’s gotten into you?!” He scolded her as she wriggled in his grasp, trying to lick his face like she’d done to the stranger in front of them. “Dude, I’m so sorry, I don’t know–”

The guy pushed away Blue’s inquisitive snout and demanded, sharply, “Is this your dog?”

Lance immediately tensed at his tone, but forced an outward calm. “Yeah, man, I don’t know what’s gotten into her. She’s usually really well-behaved–”

“You should control it better, then,” the mystery douche snapped, climbing to his feet and wiping his palms angrily on his black jeans. He snatched the book that had fallen and returned it to his bag, readjusting the straps on his shoulder, and sent a scathing look at Lance before turning to leave.

“ _Her_ ,” Lance called to his back, indignant. “And you could be a bit nicer, dude, I said I was fuckin’ sorry!”

Okay, so maybe he’d lost control of his temper. But the mystery mullet man in red plaid just raised a hand over his shoulder in a one finger salute and Lance, Blue’s leash in hand, spun on his heel furiously to stalk in the opposite direction, towards the creek and his long-coveted sketching location.

“Blue, why did you _do_ that? I know you like making new friends, girl, but a random stranger? And not only that, but to one that’s such a–such an _asshole_ !” he huffed, crossing his arms but maintaining a strong grip on Blue’s leash. As the memory of those sharp violet eyes resurfaced, he cursed, a vehement, “ _Vete pa la pinga_!” directed at the absent grouchy stranger.

A soft whine sounded, and Lance immediately turned to drop to Blue’s level.

“Girl, don’t be like that! I’m not really mad at you! I’m just mad at that _sapingo_ –how could he not love you instantly?” he pressed his lips to her forehead, and she let out a soft sound before quickly licking his chin. Lance laughed, pulling away and wiping his chin with his sleeve. “See, that’s my happy girl! Now let’s go find the perfect spot for painting and try to get that rudeass off our minds, yeah?”

She barked softly, excitedly, and Lance took it as agreement.

 

Unfortunately, despite finding the perfect spot and having the perfect day, Lance was dissatisfied with everything that his hands produced. He tried six or seven different compositions, different angles, different color combinations, but nothing was _right_. Somehow, his work wasn’t nearly as fluid as he was accustomed to.

He should have known it would turn out that way. He always had problems focusing and producing art when he started in a foul mood, and the encounter with Douchebag McMullet had definitely soured his enthusiasm.

With one final frustrated groan, Lance tossed his sketchbook to the ground and flopped backwards, his arms spread out. Blue whined softly, immediately pawing around the sketchbook to drop her front legs and her head on his chest. Her cool, wet nose nudged his chin, and Lance knew she was trying her best to comfort him. It brought a smile to his face, and he brought his right hand in to ruffle her fur.

“At least I’ve got you, huh, girl?” he said, staring up through the leaves above him. “Art is a fickle mistress, but Blue is loyal and true, ain’t that right, _corazó_ _n_?”

A soft noise of assent, and Lance laughed, reaching up with his other arm to give his furry friend a squeeze.

Adopting her from _Balmera_ was the best decision Lance had made in the last several months.

“ _Te amo_ ,” he murmured into her fur, closing his eyes and allowing himself to relax a little, basking in the gentle warmth of the sun.

 

Hunk had been home by the time Lance and Blue returned, and at Lance’s slouched figure he’d promptly declared that dinner would be all of the artist’s favorites. And he offered to talk about whatever had him down in the dumps, but Lance had refused. The offer was enough to fill him with warmth, and one encounter with a grouchy asshole shouldn’t be enough to ruin everyone’s day, right?

Pidge even gave him a pat on the shoulder and said, “You’ll get it next time, Picasso,” even before he’d admitted that his sketches hadn’t turned out. She’d grinned and then slipped into her chair at the dinner table, acting as if nothing had happened.

The fact that she had noticed and tried to comfort him too was touching enough, so Lance didn’t want to dwell on his slump.

They’d ended the night with all three of them in a heap on the lumpy basement sofa, cursing at each other and playing a few very intense cups in _Mario Kart_ , as Blue watched drowsily from beside Lance’s end of the couch.

Pidge, the little gremlin, crowed her victory on Rainbow Road while Lance cursed the numerous times he’d fallen from the edge of the track, and all was well.

* * *

 

The morning had been much better than the one before.

He woke up, pulled himself out of bed, and actually managed to catch some of Hunk’s marvelous breakfast before they both had to leave to go to work. They bickered playfully, both damned Pidge’s uncanny ability to not fall on Rainbow Road, and laughed when Blue tangled between their legs under the table in a plea to be let out into the back yard.

And then Lance prepared for work, pulling on clothes and rolling his shoulders and beating Hunk out the door with a wave and a, “See ya later!” that his best bro returned easily as he pulled on his own shoes.

At _Balmera_ , he had the opportunity to play with other excited pups and Blue got to frolic to some degree, though she could only go as far as her leash would allow while he was manning the register. She had been mostly content to curl up in the pet bed below the counter and chew on a squeaky toy, occasionally nudging at his ankle for attention.

 

After a while, the manager of the pet store half, Shay, kindly brought a bowl of water and tucked it out of Lance’s way in the little nook, as per usual, and greeted Blue with a few loving scratches behind her ear.

“It is good to see you looking well,” she smiled. It was almost tentative, but radiated warmth and sincerity.

Shay was a sturdy sort of woman. She was built broad, particularly in the shoulders, and her hands were far from delicate, but somehow she was still one of the most careful, gentle people that Lance had ever met. Shay was all that was kind and good, and Lance really liked her–though not as much as Hunk, if the number of times he came by to keep Lance company and ended up simply asking Shay if there was anything he could do to help or just staring at her instead of actually speaking to his best friend was any indication.

“You’re looking just as lovely as ever,” he winked, offering her his trademark finger guns and grinning widely at her. She sighed, but the tender smile never fell from her face.

“Oh, hush, you,” she giggled softly instead, flapping her fingers at him girlishly.

“I wouldn’t say it if it wasn’t true, Shay-bae!” Lance quipped back, flouncing to arrange the selection of treats and toys by his register. “And besides, I know someone who would _definitely_ agree!”

He used his very versatile eyebrows and was pleased to see a light dusting of pink across her tan cheeks.

“I-I am sure I do not know who you m-mean,” she managed, averting her gaze.

“Uh huh,” Lance smirked, more to himself than at her. “Sure you don’t.”

She was stammering adorably, and Lance wished Hunk was here to see it–or even that it was acceptable for him to film his manager at work–but if her brother Rax, who was in charge of shelter half of _Balmera_ , caught him again? Lance would be out faster than you could say _quiznak_ , whatever that meant. The quirky co-owner of a gallery he really admired said it a lot, though.

He decided to spare her, though, and changed the subject. Fumbling a little as she tidied up around the other register, she slowly relaxed and engaged in idle conversation between helping customers and work.

 

It was nearly the end of his shift, and everything had been going great. He’d hit on at least three babes–no numbers yet, but he wouldn’t let that get him down–and he’d managed not to piss Rax off. Somehow. Lance had been able to help all the customers that came and asked him to help, and he felt very satisfied with that.

Blue had been very well-behaved and friendly with a few small children that wanted to pet her. She was always good with kids, which is part of what Lance had loved about her from the start. He had siblings and nieces and nephews and little cousins, and a family friendly dog always made things better. So, if she perked up as the bell chimed, Lance didn’t think too much of it. It wasn’t uncommon, and he was busy with another customer so he didn’t look up until it was too late for him to catch the newcomer.

“Thanks for shopping at _Balmera_!” he waved farewell at the man and his daughter with a grin. The six year old giggled and waggled her chubby fingers in return, and Lance’s grin grew wider.

Apparently, she’d just been given two guinea pigs for her birthday, and she was excited to be picking up all of the stuff for their cage. The abundance of pink items that had been on the belt and were now in the environmentally friendly reusable bags that they’d brought in–with the _Balmera_ logo, so Lance had a feeling he knew where her parents had bought the guinea pigs in the first place–was enough bring an even wider grin to the little girl’s face as she grasped her father’s hand and babbled excitedly until the door fell closed behind them.

Those were Lance’s favorite kinds of customers, and he hoped that her parents taught her to love and care for her furry friends like his mother had taught him with Pedro, the yellow lab his family had had for most of his childhood.

Blue sprang to her feet, jolting him out of his reverie.

“What is it, girl?” he asked, brows furrowed, as she sniffed the air.

Before he could kneel and try to soothe her, she darted out from the little cashier’s nook. He wanted to call out to her, warn her that she couldn’t go far because of her leash, but then she jumped and in one fell swoop, he recognized the red beanie and messy dark _mullet_ of the man that had been about to step up to the other register behind him as he fell to the floor with a curse, Blue nearly sitting on his stomach.

“Not _again_ ,” Lance muttered under his breath, but being the good associate that he was, he rushed forward to dissuade his excited overgrown pup. “ _Blue_! Get back here!”

She stiffened and pulled back from trying to lick the grumpy man’s chin for the second day in a row, whining softly in the back of her throat. At Lance’s stern look, she stepped back with her tail drooping and her nose dipped in shame. Lance felt a lurch of guilt, but he stepped forward to the other man and started to gather the few things he’d dropped when Blue had bowled him over.

Again.

“I’m so sorry, man,” Lance offered once he’d helped gather everything. “She’s usually not like this.”

In the midst of muttering profanities under his breath, Douchebag McMullet looked up. His eyes widened when he spotted Lance, and then he groaned.

“You? Again? Jesus, control your dog! This is the second day in a row!”

“Hey!” Lance started sharply, and then remembered that, first of all, he was supposed to be working and couldn’t exactly offend a valued customer and, secondly, he didn’t want to get in a fight with this dude, no matter how much of an asshole he was being. So he sucked in a breath, and instead of swearing at the other man like he desperately wanted to, he managed, “Blue’s just really friendly. I have no idea why she decided she wanted to be friends with _you,_ but once she gets the idea in her head it’s hard to get her to stop.”

“Well, try harder,” he sassed Lance as he picked himself up.

Blue whined sadly, nudging against the grouchy guy’s knee. Lance gently pushed her away with a soft, “No, Blue,” before he stood up as well and helped place the man’s items on Brenda’s conveyor belt. She was staring with wide brown eyes, and he just smiled at her in a way that was meant to assure her that he had things under control.

In his own mind, he was scrambling to come up with a solution that would appease Blue’s latest...victim. And then an idea hit.

It was stupid. It was far-fetched. But it was the best he had.

Lance rummaged in his pocket and then rifled through his wallet for a moment before handing Brenda his discount card while the other man finished placing items on the belt. Without even meaning to, he noticed a bag of cat food. All at once, with the realization that all of his items were cat-related, it became apparent why Blue’s enthusiasm conflicted with his personality. Of _course_ he was a cat person.

Shaking his head to clear his thoughts, Lance leaned forward to speak to Brenda.

“Give him my discount, ‘kay?” he murmured, and then with a quick glance at the man in the red beanie, he took a deep breath and he lied, “He’s my boyfriend, but we’re kind of fighting right now and I feel bad. It was my turn to get the stuff for the cat, but...well...”

Her eyes widened, then she looked concerned and almost pitying, and then finally she smiled and nodded.

“I’ve got your back, Lance,” she whispered while she winked, and he pulled back quickly, ushering Blue into his cashier’s cubby as Brenda started ringing the mystery dude’s purchases through.

Lance decided that apologizing verbally again wouldn’t do shit, if it hadn’t the first however many times he’d done so. He only hoped that, when Douchebag McMullet realized what he’d done, _if_ he did, he’d appreciate it. If Rax found out about the technical misuse of his discount, Lance would be out of a job in a heartbeat.

There wasn’t really anything Rax _wouldn’t_ fire him for, if he was honest with himself.

 _I hope this works_ , he thought, _and I hope that Rax never finds out_.

And then, as he turned to the next customer in his own line, he was struck with all the implications of his actions.

First, it meant that Brenda, the chattiest of his coworkers, might tell others that he finally had a boyfriend, which would severely ruin his flirting game. _Shit_.

Second, it meant that he would be expected to give a _name_ for Douchebag McMullet, and he still didn’t have a clue. Considering that their first two encounters, including this one, had been filled with bitterness, shouting, and excessive swearing, there hadn’t been much time for names.

Third, it meant that he was claiming _Douchebag McMullet_ , the man in the red beanie with the most outdated hairstyle _ever_ , as someone he’d date.

He had to glance over his shoulder as Brenda gave the other man his total, just to remind himself that he wasn’t crazy. The mullet was still there, in disarray under the beanie that was still slightly lopsided, and Lance couldn’t really see the other man’s face, but something lurched awkwardly in the pit of his stomach.

He remembered the flash of violet eyes yesterday, when he’d first seen him, and the slight attraction he’d felt before Blue had been insulted. He remembered the firm jaw, set in a scowl, and the way black strands of hair carefully framed the other man’s face. And most of all, Lance remembered the way the red plaid he’d worn had shown the broad shoulders and trim waist, and it was in that instant Lance knew he was screwed.

 _Oh, no,_ he whined internally, as if he’d only just realized it–and maybe he had.

 _He’s hot_.

For a day that had started out _incredibly_ well, it was spiralling into no man’s land pretty quickly.

* * *

 

As if the day hadn’t been bad enough.

Hell, not even just the day. The entire _week_ had been rough.

It had started with a leaky pipe in the apartment above the one he shared with his brother Shiro, which had resulted in a ridiculous amount of water damage that their insurance wasn’t going to completely cover. Those _bastards_. He and Shiro had stayed with Allura for the three days it took to dry out the apartment and had both spoken to their respective bosses to get more hours at work. Keith had managed his usual forty hour work week in only four days.

He was only thankful that the third bedroom, which Shiro graciously granted as Keith’s studio, had been spared from any significant damages.

After the apartment fiasco, he’d gone to the park on his one day off. He was going to sketch a few scenes and isolate the one he’d turn into his next painting, but even with two coffees, staying awake was hard. All of his lines were wobbly and imperfect at best. He’d never been so dissatisfied with his own work until that moment–or at least not in the last few years, since he’d come into his own as an artist.

And then, to top it all off, he’d been toppled by someone’s _dog_. Not even once, but twice.

It wasn’t that the dog was a giant, but she–as her owner had insisted–was energetic. _Friendly_ , the man had said. Keith didn’t understand how a dog that would tackle random passersby to the _ground_ was just being _friendly_ with them, but dog people were just like that where their fur children were concerned, he supposed.

He didn’t quite understand it. He made no excuses for Red when she was in a foul mood. There was no excusing the claw marks that were still on the back of his hand from just that morning, when he’d apparently been too slow to give her food.

 _Cats_.

But...no, _Blue_ , he thought the dog’s name was, hadn’t even been the worst part about the week. The worst part was that this week was always, _always_ a bad week. And today was the worst day, ever since the accident five years ago.

When all of those factors combined, it made Keith irrational. He didn’t want to think about it, so he did anything to keep himself from doing so. It usually led him to taking long walks, shoulders hunched and hood up to escape the stares of anyone he might pass, and this year seemed like it would be no different.

Keith didn’t know when he’d actually left the apartment, or how he’d made his way to the park. He couldn’t remember making his way to the creek, to the point where it gently curved and the water rippled prettily. Keith didn’t recall finding the little stone bench with ivy crawling up one side and he certainly didn’t know why he’d chosen to sit on the ground and lean against the bench instead of sitting on top of it. He just _had_.

He also hadn’t noticed when it started to rain.

The water had already soaked through his clothes and he felt a dull chill settling in his bones, but Keith only leaned his head back against the bench and closed his eyes against the falling rain. Maybe the drops could cleanse him of the memories that plagued him. They teemed beneath his eyelids, flashes of a time he never wanted to remember, and Keith grit his teeth and ignored the burning sensation that tingled at the corners of his eyes.

Images of the flashing lights danced across his mind, and Keith forced himself to sit up abruptly, with an angry tug, he pulled his hood down lower over his face and curled in on himself, burying his face in his already damp knees and locking his hands around his wrists.

He heard the sound of rain pattering all around him, but it was accentuated by the echoing memory of crunching metal. No matter how hard his fingers dug into his own skin, Keith couldn’t shake the wailing sirens or the agonized scream. The images and sounds were all jumbled together, but he knew the order they belonged in. He knew the way that the headlights flared suddenly to the right side, the way the other car flew past their stop sign and directly into the passenger door of Keith’s car.

Keith remembered the sticky feel of blood on his temple as he blearily blinked, trying to understand how his car had ended up on its side.

He remembered looking above him and seeing how his brother’s arm was pinched in the crumpled mess of the passenger side door, how Shiro had moaned in pain and grit his teeth against it as the emergency responders had carefully extracted him from the wreckage.

“Stop,” he choked weakly into his knees, as if pleading for his memories to cease playback.

The flashing lights. The sirens. The way that Shiro’s blood had soaked through the temporary bandages on the way to the hospital. The sound of Shiro’s mother– _their_ mother, through Keith’s adoption–crying into his arms when they wouldn’t let them in to see Shiro while the operation was in progress. The way that the doctor blanched when he announced that they had been unable to save the arm, and suggested they start thinking about a prosthetic alternative.

The way that Shiro had never blamed him, even for a second, while Keith felt guilt eating away at him from the inside out.

Keith tried to ignore the tears that leaked from his eyes. He tried to take steady breaths instead, breathing deeply to get rid of the guilt he’d always ignored, always forced down. He knew that Shiro didn’t blame him, he knew that Shiro’s parents didn’t blame him, and he himself knew that it wasn’t his fault. A drunk man had run the stop sign as Keith and Shiro were passing the road, and it was too late for Keith to react.

But that didn’t change the fact that he had been driving. He would always wonder if there had been something he could have done to stop it.

What if–

Keith thoughts were abruptly ended by a loud snuffling sound and a wet _something_ pressing against his ear. He jerked upright with a nearly horrified yelp and slammed his shoulders painfully against the stone bench behind him before he registered the wide-eyed, whining canine sitting before him, wagging her tail gleefully.

The dog leaned forward again, nudging her wet nose against his cheek, letting another soft huff near his ear. Keith tried to protect it by hunching his shoulder, turning his head, but the canine continued to press forward insistently.

“What do you want?” he finally asked, his voice feeble as he reached up to fend her off. In response, she barked. It was soft, as if she knew she was too close to him to bark loudly, and then leaned forward into his hands, nuzzling against his fingers. Keith, almost without meaning to, uncurled his fingers and scratched below the dog’s ear. She made a pleased noise, pushing against his hand excitedly, and something about her attitude was familiar. He couldn’t quite place it, and was too weary to try.

With a sigh, Keith gave in to her cheer and leaned forward, pressing his forehead against the dog’s. She remained there, just letting him, and he wondered why this felt so comfortable. He wondered where she’d come from, briefly, before he let the thought slip away. She offered him a sort of solace he’d needed without knowing he needed it, and he was going to be selfish.

For a moment, he could let his memories was away with the presence of another living creature at his side.

For a moment, he could be calm.

But only for a moment.

“ _Blue! Girl, where did you go?!_ ” he heard, some small distance away. He lifted his head and the dog in front of him perked up, looking in the direction of the voice. “ _Blue, you know you’re not supposed to run off! Blue!_ ”

“Of course you’d be _his_ dog,” Keith murmured, pulling away from the canine to look down at her. He didn’t retract his hand, though, and Blue wagged her tail and leaned into his touch. He gave another gentle scratch behind her ear as he reached up with his other hand to tug his hood down lower.

To say that her snarky owner was the _last_ person Keith wanted to witness him in his this state wasn’t exactly true. That person was _Shiro_. But if anyone had to see Keith now, he would have preferred someone else. Maybe someone even more of a stranger than the mildly attractive man whose dog had assaulted him a few times.

“Blue! There you are!” the voice was nearer now, and Blue lifted her head and barked at the approaching man.

Instead of going to her owner, like Keith had expected, she turned and nuzzled against his cheek. And then she _licked him_.

Blinking at her in a daze, as her owner gasped and started scolding her, Keith couldn’t help but laugh. She was so innocent, so bright, and she was trying to cheer him in her own way, even if she didn’t know what was wrong. It was endearing, and even considering she’d knocked him to the ground two days in a row–the previous two days of his hellish week–he couldn’t find it in him to be upset with her.

“I thought you didn’t _like_ Blue!” hands slowly descended into his line of sight, and the other man crouched to coax his dog away from Keith.

“I never said that,” Keith defended, dropping his hand. Blue whined, and her owner reached up to scratch between her ears affectionately, narrowing his eyes at Keith. “I definitely didn’t like her knocking me over, though.”

“Yeah, well–”

“–she was just being friendly?”

Keith snorted and looked at Blue’s owner again, really looked at him, as his mouth moved up and down, as if he was trying to find the words for a retort. But his expression changed as Keith watched, his brow furrowing. It wasn’t anger, or frustration, but Keith couldn’t place it.

“Dude, you’re soaked,” were the next words out of his mouth, and Keith’s eyes widened in surprise. “How long have you been out here?”

 _Concern_. That’s what the expression had been, and that’s what tone the man was using. It didn’t fit the cocky man that argued with strangers in defense of his dog’s affectionate tendencies. Concern, especially for the stranger that had at first had such an angry attitude towards Blue, didn’t seem like him.

Keith shrugged and asked instead, “What time is it?”

“It’s like, ten in the morning,” the other man responded, tone turning incredulous. And then he reached forward, touching Keith’s forehead without asking. Keith jerked away, opening his mouth to say something, but Blue’s owner nearly screeched, “ _Dios_ , you’re freezing cold, man! I don’t even _care_ how long you’ve been out here, but you’ve got to warm up.”

He shoved himself to his feet and, again without asking, grabbed Keith beneath his armpit and heaved him to his feet. Two things became apparent at that moment, and he wasn’t sure how to address either one.

The first was that Blue’s owner was really stubborn, as was proven in the last few days by his firm insistence that Blue’s greetings were all friendly and his frustration at the coarse way Keith treated her. The second was that he was serious about Keith getting warmer, if he was willing to manhandle him, which meant that he was actually concerned about Keith. It was strange to him, that someone who didn’t know him at all could still treat him with this kind of care and worry. Keith wasn’t used to it.

“What are you _doing_ ?” he asked after a few stunned moments, as Blue’s owner pulled him along by the arm. “Let _go_ , man!”

“Nope,” the lanky man popped the ‘p’, glancing over at Keith. “I mean it. You’ve got to get warmed up. I don’t care how long you’ve been out here, and I’m pretty sure you don’t even _know_ and that just makes it worse, so I’m gonna buy you a coffee. Or a tea. Or a hot chocolate. Dude, I don’t know what you drink, but I’m gonna buy you one when we get to the Castle of Lions.”

_The Castle of Lions? Isn’t that...Coran’s cat café?_

“Will they let Blue in…?” he mused aloud instead. The dog owner glanced at him, as if surprised that he seemed to know what the Castle of Lions was, before laughing. He removed his hand from Keith’s arm and slipped it around his shoulder, leaning over in a friendly manner.

“Of course! Coran loves her, and so do the cats!”

As if in agreement and to reassure him, Blue lifted her head, nudged Keith’s hand, and barked.

 _He’s on first name basis with Coran, too?_ Keith wondered, surprised. He knew Coran because he was one of the co-owners of _Juniberries_ , the art gallery that Shiro used to show work in and now helped curate with his girlfriend Allura, the other owner. Coran had, in fact, helped Keith land a small gallery showing there just a couple of months ago, after he had done a joint show with Shiro at Allura’s insistence.

“Anyway,” Blue’s owner continued flippantly, gesticulating wildly with the hand that held her leash, which was slack because she was staying at their sides, “don’t be too disappointed if the cats don’t like you. Some of them are pretty standoffish, and they all prefer Blue to people, can you believe it?”

“I’m sure,” Keith answered drily, not really focused on his words. He watched his feet as he walked, thinking about how Red would turn her nose up at him if he came home smelling like other cats and a dog. Or rather, _when_ he came home smelling like that, as it seemed inevitable.

“Here we are!” a bell chimed, and Keith jerked his head up as the cheerful man pulled him through the door he’d opened. “C’mon, c’mon, it’s still raining, and I _know_ you’ve gotta be freezing, man. Blue, get out of his way, don’t trip him!”

She whined a little, but moved back so her owner could continue pulling Keith through the door. Keith finally pulled himself from his daze and stepped forward, away from the arm that was still around his shoulders, and the door closed behind them.

Keith nearly stumbled anyway, and a glance at his feet showed a plump tabby weaving his–her?–way between his legs. She paused and looked up at him with wide green eyes, and then meowed at him, turning her head to rub against his leg, despite the fact that he was soaked through. The man at his side made a garbled sound of disbelief and let out a strangled, “ _How_?”

“Welcome to the Castle of Lions!” a familiar voice chimed, muffled, and then a head of orange hair popped out from behind a coffee machine. “Oh, Lance, m’boy, it’s been a while! And Blue! Welcome, welcome. You brought a friend, I see–oh? Is that Keith?”

Blue’s owner– _Lance_ , it seemed–turned to Keith, and he shrugged a little in response.

“What happened to you?” Coran blinked at Keith, looking him up and down. “Why, you look even more drenched than I was after I spent three hours wrestling with a mandeluvian flying eel! Come, come, m’boy! I have a few spare t-shirts in the back, and I insist change into one of them. It’s better than staying completely drenched, after all!” he motioned Keith to come behind the counter. Almost as an afterthought, he called, “Lance, if you and Blue just want to take a seat at your usual table, I’ll send Keith back out to you in a few moments!”

“Sure thing, Coran!” Lance chirped cheerfully, then whispered to Keith, “You have _got_ to tell me how you know Coran because I’m sure there’s a _story_. There always is with Coran.”

Keith just shrugged and received an exaggerated frown in response as Coran called again, beckoning him to follow to the back room. Smiling to himself, he ducked behind the counter and followed the tutting older gentleman as he made his way down a short hall to a small locker room at the end.

“I didn’t know you were friends with Lance,” Coran started, reaching for a box on top of a row of lockers. “He’s a good sort of kid, and does a lot to make everyone around him happy. He’s a good person to have around you. How long have you known him?”

With a little hesitation, Keith admitted, “We’re not exactly, uh, _friends_. We met two days ago when I cussed at him after Blue knocked me down in the park.”

Coran paused and then slowly turned to look at Keith, one eyebrow quirked almost comically high and a horrendously pink shirt with the cat café’s logo on the front in hand. His mustache twitched, and Keith shrank away a little as Coran finally found his voice.

“You mean to tell me that on your first meeting with my favorite customers, you cussed at them? All because Blue was being friendly?” he demanded. Keith nodded, and Coran shoved the hot pink shirt at him. “Well, then, pink it is. I was going to have pity on you, but after hearing that I’m afraid I just can’t let you off the hook. Now go change and get out there and make it up to Lance and Blue.”

On reflex, Keith had taken the shirt shoved at him, and as soon as Coran had said his piece, he stalked away and greeted a customer in the other room in the loud, boisterous way that only he could manage. After a bit of shuffling, Coran ducked back into the room for a second and tossed something else in Keith’s face, calling, “Dry off a little, too, lest you catch a cold!”

He disappeared again, and Keith was left staring at a violet towel and a hot pink monstrosity of a t-shirt, completely different from the various other Castle of Lions shirts he’d seen Coran wear before. He’d seen the orange that perfectly matched the eccentric’s hair, a blue or two that nicely complimented his hair, and even a red that clashed horribly that Keith was rather hoping for when he’d been offered a shirt.

He didn’t even really know this _Lance_ character, aside from the fact that he was pushy, stubborn, and that Coran seemed to really like him, but he had a feeling that this pink shirt was going to be a terrible decision.

Even so, it was better than staying completely drenched, so he groaned and peeled his jacket away from his skin, wincing at the sensation. His shirt followed, and he shuddered when the cool air of the locker room washed across his bare skin. Keith cursed under his breath, a string of swears at both the chill and his own stupidity. This continued as he dried himself, turning to his hair last and then, for the first time since he’d seen Blue, the realization of _why_ flooded back.

Keith slowly lowered the towel, draping it around his neck.

The appearance of Blue, and her owner soon after, had completely wiped his mind of the memories. It was the first time in the five years since the accident had happened that anyone had been able to pull him from stewing in his guilt.

Groaning, Keith slumped onto the single bench in the small room and pressed his face into his hands. Of all the people–it couldn’t have been Allura, who would have placed her hands on her hips and glared at him until he could actually admit out loud that it hadn’t been his fault? Or even Shiro, who would just look at him with a soft look he couldn’t quite decipher and then tell him that everything was okay, and that it wasn’t his fault? It couldn’t have been Coran, who was so much more perceptive than most people gave him credit for, who would have just given him silly errands to do as a challenge just to get him in motion?

No. It had to be _Lance_.

Lance, whose name Keith only knew because Coran knew him.

Lance, the owner of the energetic dog that had knocked him over two days in a row when Keith had been in a bad mood.

 _Lance_ , who had immediately ushered Keith to the Castle of Lions when he had noticed how cold and how thoroughly _soaked_ he was from sitting out in the pouring rain for who knew how long, had outright said he’d buy Keith a coffee or something warm to drink, and had left absolutely no chance for Keith to argue on any of those points.

He was starting to see why Coran liked the other man.

They were pretty similar, if Keith took the time to compare what he knew about the two. Lance, for all that bravado and how big he talked, was actually a really perceptive person. It was something Keith had overlooked after their first two encounters, unwilling to see past the jerk who couldn’t accept that his dog was out of control. In that respect, Lance really was just like Coran, because most people couldn’t see the odd man’s cleverness and kindness underneath all of his eccentricities. And it took a lot for Coran to praise you the way he praised Lance, so Keith knew that there had to be something more than what was on the surface.

That kindness, though. It was the biggest trait they shared. Coran’s was open and friendly, though somewhat strange, but Lance’s was subtle, hidden by verbal comebacks and sass. Now that he was calm, Keith could realize that the first two times they’d met, Lance had been apologizing in his own sincere but awkward way.

Keith didn’t know how to deal with people like that. He wasn’t used to kindness, even kindness that was hidden beneath other actions.

“Keith, m’boy! Are you almost done?” Coran’s voice rang, and Keith dragged his hands wearily down his face before sitting up and pulling the violet towel from his shoulders, setting it aside before reaching for the pink shirt beside him.

“Yeah, yeah,” he called back, pulling the shirt over his head. “Gimme a minute!”

There was no response, and Keith took that as a good sign. Or a sign that Coran was busy with a customer or a cat. Either way, he tugged the pink shirt town and grimaced when he caught a glimpse of himself in the full length mirror on the back of the door. The shirt was a little too big and fell a bit too long, but at least it was dry.

He told himself it was better than nothing even as he gathered his wet shirt and jacket and exited the room.

“There you are!” Coran’s mustache twitched when he spotted Keith, his eyes twinkling in amusement. Keith arched one eyebrow, daring Coran to say something, but he just grinned and pushed a small tray with two cups and saucers into Keith’s hands. “Mind the cats on your way to the table. Plain black, just like you prefer, and then there are creamers and sugars for Lance. He likes two of each.”

Coran _winked_ , and Keith blinked at him in astonishment before the former ushered him away, off to the table near the door, where Blue lay basking in the sun on her side with...four cats laying on her? No, five. Lance was preoccupied, offering his hand to a pretty Russian blue in the window. The cat turned its head away from his hand and he sighed, pulling his hand back.

“Still no luck with Coran’s cats?” Keith asked, amused by the way Lance’s head jerked up when he neared. Keith slid the tray carefully onto the small table and took the seat across from Lance, reaching out to offer the cat on the back of his bench a hand. It was the same tabby that had nearly tripped him at the door, and it immediately leaned into him with a soft meow. He heard Lance spluttering indignantly, and then another sigh.

“What are you, a cat whisperer?” he grumbled, reaching for the sugar and creamer on the tray.

Keith watched as Coran’s words came true right before his eyes. Two sugars, two creamers.

“I like cats,” Keith shrugged as the tabby lifted itself and came to nuzzle against the side of his head. He snorted and reached up to scratch behind its ear. “I have one at home, but she’s not much of a social cat.”

“I like cats, too,” Lance actually _pouted_ and Keith wondered how this was a grown man sitting in front of him. “They just don’t like me. I think it’s because I come from a long line of dog people and they can just _smell_ it on me. Their spider-cat senses are tingling, or some shit.”

“ _Spider-cat senses_?” he repeated the words slowly, wondering if he’d heard Lance wrong.

He hadn’t.

“Yeah, man! They have like, super powers. They have to. Maybe they can see back through my family history and find some ancestor that wrestled a tiger in the Coliseum or something, or God forbid that time _abuela_ accidentally hit a cat with her car. I was seven and I was _traumatized_. What if they think I inherited the gene? What if they can just...sense it on me? That most of my family doesn’t like them?”

Lance seemed so sincere that Keith didn’t know how to respond. He just watched as Lance stopped stirring his coffee, sighed again, and lifted his cup to take a sip. With a hum of approval, he wrapped both hands around the cup for warmth and looked back, imploringly, at Keith.

“Do you think cats will ever like me?”

“I–what?” Keith lowered his own drink before continuing. “How should I know?”

“You’re the cat whisperer! You understand the way they think. You’ve gotta know if one of them will like me someday, man!”

Keith took a slow sip, lowered his coffee, and then spoke drily, “You’re absolutely ridiculous.”

The man across the table huffed and released his cup, crossing his arms and looking out the window. Keith couldn’t help wondering, yet again, how Lance was an actual adult when he acted so childish. And that pout again, that slight pucker in his lips and the pinch between his brows. The way he scrunched up his nose when he did it.

A grown man shouldn’t look _cute_ , and Keith wanted to forget that Lance _did_.

The tabby at Keith’s ear slowly transferred its weight to his shoulder and lightly hopped onto the table. It sniffed at the cup in his hands and shook its head, backing away with the most offended look Keith had ever seen a cat muster–and Red had given him a lot of disappointed and offended cat glares before. Keith snorted at that reaction, and watched as Lance’s blue eyes turned to watch her. The tabby padded its way over to Lance’s side of the table, pawing gently at the handle of his cup before sniffing his drink as well. It shook its head again, but with less disgust than it had at Keith’s plain coffee, and then it turned to look up at Lance.

Cocking its head to the side slightly, it mewed.

“I think you’ve got a chance,” Keith drawled, amused, once he had found his voice.

Lance nearly squeaked when the tabby lifted itself onto its hind legs and rested its paws on his chest, pressing forward to judge at his chin with another meow. Keith lifted his coffee to avoid laughing at him, and the cat insistently nudged at Lance’s jaw.

“Oh, cat whisperer,” Lance murmured, a broken sound. And then his voice bordered on hysteria when he asked, “ _What do I do_?!”

Keith snorted into his coffee.

“Maybe _pet_ the cat?”

With shaking hands, the other man reached down to lightly pat the tabby on the head. He pulled them back quickly, though, as if worried that he’d offend the cat. When it pawed at his hand, other forepaw still firmly planted on Lance’s chest, he moved his hand back to carefully scratched behind its ears. As his confidence grew, he reached his other hand out to rest next to the tabby. The cat flopped down on the table and nuzzled against the hand he’d just put down, and a smile crept across his face.

Keith watched with amusement, sipping at his coffee and absentmindedly petting any of the cats that wandered over to him. The way that Lance’s eyes lit up was, admittedly, cute, and Keith kind of hated himself for thinking it. He barely knew the guy, but he couldn’t deny it.

Lance was an attractive man. His personality was far more exuberant than Keith could usually handle, but it worked for him. He was an open book. When Lance’s emotions diffused across his features, from his facial expressions to his body language, Keith could _feel_ them. And right now, the joy that was radiating off of him made Keith smile softly behind his coffee cup. When Lance was happy, it made Keith want to be happy, too.

No...it actually made Keith happy.

Sitting here in the Castle of Lions with Lance, watching as he interacted with the tabby cat by tickling its– _her_ , it seemed–stomach, Keith was happy.

* * *

 

Keith enjoyed the snatches of happiness he managed to find, but happiness was fickle and fleeting at best, and annoyance liked to pry at the cracks.

Today was one such day, two days after the _incident_ with the rain and the Castle of Lions and Lance and Blue. He’d woken with a sniffle and a bit of a headache but had at least six hours to laze around and try to nip whatever it was in the bud before work...or he was _supposed_ to have those six hours.

Instead, his boss had called, tone strained, and asked if he could come in early because Nyma had called in.

_Again._

Keith had agreed, and now that he was on his lunch break and feeling suitably miserable, he had found time to regret his decision. No matter how badly he needed the money, working when he should have been resting to get rid of the ill feeling in his chest had only served to exacerbate it even more. He was now almost positive he had a cold, and though his boss had graciously granted him an extra long lunch because of how many hours he’d be working, Keith suspected that it still wouldn’t be enough.

He wasn’t even sure he had the energy to _eat_. Maybe he’d just go home and take a nap and pray that he made it back to work in two hours, like he was supposed to.

Keith groaned, and when even that came out nasally, he huffed in annoyance. He didn’t hear the shout around the corner, and he only caught a glimpse of a speckled white blur before he nearly fell at the force that barreled into his legs.

“ _Fuck_ ,” he cursed under his breath, flailing until his hand caught on the building beside him and he was able to stabilize himself. Only then did Keith glance down to find a somewhat familiar canine looking up at him, looking incredibly pleased with herself and wagging her tail so hard it shook the rest of her body. “What the hell–you again, Blue?”

She made a soft bark that he took to be agreement.

“Blue, not again!” the familiar voice groaned, and the quick footsteps slowed as the owner stooped to pick up the end of the Aussie’s leash. Lance looked up and opened his mouth to speak, but his expression pinched after a moment and it looked like he was trying to find something else to say.

He was probably going to remark on how Keith looked like shit, so Keith spoke first, quirking an eyebrow as he asked, “I thought you were going to keep a better eye on her?”

The statement lacked some of the bite it would have had just a few days earlier. Keith wanted to blame it entirely on the cold he was sure he’d caught, but he knew that part of it was definitely in the kind, caring side of Lance he’d been able to glimpse that day. He’d probably never say it out loud, though.

Blue’s owner groaned at his words, and then shot back, “You try holding onto the leash of a sixty pound dog when she decides she wants to say hi to some grouchy dude in red.”

Lance dropped to scratch behind Blue’s ears, and Keith couldn’t help himself.

“Keith.”

“What?” man and dog both looked up at him, Lance with an eyebrow quirked in confusion.

“I’m not ‘ _some grouchy dude in red_ ’. My name’s _Keith_ ,” he emphasized, dropping his hand from the wall and crossing his arms. It wasn’t out of frustration, but he was too exhausted to really correct the appearance of it. “And yours is _Lance_.”

“Keith, buddy, relax,” Lance grinned at him, an easygoing smile that lifted his spirits, just a little. “I didn’t forget about it, my mulleted acquaintance. I was making a joke–all in good fun! But I’m flattered you remembered me,” he ended with a wink and a light laugh.

Keith rolled his eyes and muttered a soft, “ _Asshole_.”

“I am _offended_ ,” Lance declared dramatically, lifting a hand over his heart. “I thought we had bonded over coffee and cats and Blue, but I see I may have been mistaken! And I would love to stay and tell you all the things that make me great, but I’m afraid I’m actually running late for something–but mark my words, Keithy-boy, _we will continue this conversation_!”

“I won’t hold my breath,” Keith responded, deadpan, as Lance tugged Blue away. The other man stuck his tongue out at him in an immature gesture, and then almost as quickly as they had appeared, they were gone. Keith let out a sigh he hadn’t been aware of holding back, and then continued on his way.

When he glanced at his watch, he realized that he’d wasted at least five minutes of his two hour lunch– _nap_ –and huffed, shoving his hands in his pockets and continuing the trek back to the apartment.

He sneezed no less than three times in the rest of the eight minute walk, maybe more, and nearly stepped out in front of a car, but in the end he made it back to the apartment and fumbled with his phone to set at least four alarms that would give him time to grab an energy bar before heading back to work, and then he collapsed face first on the couch.

Sleep was swift, and it overtook him in moments.


	2. Chapter 2

Groaning, Lance leaned back on the bench.

“I’m sure it’s not  _ that _ bad,” Hunk offered cheerfully, taking his second donut from the box between them. Blue shifted at their feet, making herself more comfortable, and Lance let out another exaggerated groan. “Oh, come on. What else happened? You said you ran into him more than just that first day.”

“Well,” Lance draped his arm across his eyes, blocking out the sun. “That first day, like I said, he was a complete asshole and called Blue an  _ it _ –can you believe that?–and like, stomped off. And I mean, I wasn’t the nicest person on the planet, either, but he’d just insulted the most beautiful girl in the world by calling her an it so I wasn’t exactly in the best mood. Not to mention that I couldn’t draw worth a damn by the time I got to the spot I wanted to paint, and I just ended up leaving and being all frustrated when I did.”

“You said that already,” Hunk prompted, and from the sound of his voice Lance could tell his mouth was full.

“Okay, well, literally the next day at work, right as I finish with the last person in my line, Blue decides to jump someone behind me. And at first I’m thinking,  _ why are you acting out so much? _ I mean, it’s the second time in two days! But then I start helping this guy pick his cat food and shit up, and it’s  _ Keith _ . And Blue’s knocked him over  _ again _ . And he’s just as grouchy as ever and still unfairly attractive, Hunk, and I had to be nice and shit while he was being all rude and grumpy, and then while he was distracted and mumbling to himself, I gave Brenda my discount card and told her to swipe it for him.”

“Dude, if Rax finds out about that you’re  _ so _ fired,” Hunk hissed, and from the corner of his eye Lance noticed his friend looking around the park, as if he expected Rax to leap out from a nearby bush. “You can’t afford to lose the job yet, y’know, you still have to pay off the student loans and stuff you accumulated at school. I mean, Pidge and I can probably manage the house payments but–”

“Chill, I know!” Lance flapped his hand at Hunk, leaning forward and bracing his elbows on his knees. “I thought about that. Which is why I made the dumbest mistake ever and told her that he was my  _ boyfriend _ and that we were fighting and I felt bad over it!”

A startled inhale sounded, and then Hunk started coughing. Lance looked over in alarm and reached out to thump his buddy on the back as he dislodged the piece of donut from his throat before asking, incredulously, “You said  _ what _ ?”

“I told Brenda that  _ Keith _ was my boyfriend,” Lance muttered, averting his gaze and snatching a maple donut from the box before his best friend devoured all of them. “I know it was stupid, man, you don’t have to tell me. And back then I didn’t even know his  _ name _ ! But I felt bad, and it was the second day in a row that Blue had knocked him over, and what else was I gonna do?” he huffed and slumped into the bench.

“You could have, I don’t know, offered to take him out for coffee or something?”

“No, I bought him coffee the  _ next _ day,” Lance answered, surprisingly clear, around his bite. He swallowed, and at Hunk’s impatient prompting, continued, “He was just sitting there, on the ground by that bench I like by the creek. In the pouring rain. And Blue was comforting him or some shit, and I get there, and he looks like hell. He’s got massive bags under his eyes, and he’s soaked to the bone, and even  _ he _ doesn’t know how long he’s been in the rain. Hunk, buddy, I didn’t know what was wrong with him–I still don’t know–but it was kind of freaky. He wasn’t being a dick, he wasn’t even getting mad at Blue for messing with him. He just looked kinda...empty? Or something.”

Hunk made a concerned sound, probably over Keith’s state and Lance’s barely masked worry. He then urged Lance to continue again by asking, “And you bought him coffee?”

“Yeah,” Lance rolled his shoulders and took another bite of donut. He chewed and swallowed before he continued, slowly, “I kinda dragged him to Coran’s, and somehow  _ he _ knows Coran, too, though I didn’t find out how, and Coran dragged him to the back and gave him this horrendous pink shirt that he  _ still _ looked hot in even though he looked like a drowned rat, and I bought him a coffee, and we just kinda talked. About cats. At least I got him to smile a bit, though. That was a definite plus. He didn’t look quite as haunted when he left to go home and get changed for real, but I think he still caught a cold anyway. At least, it looked like it when I saw him yesterday. But he was a little bit of a jerk, and I was in a hurry to meet you and Pidge, so I didn’t get a chance to ask.”

A brief silence fell between them, and then, reaching for another donut as Lance finished his first, Hunk pointed out, “You’ve run into him a lot in the last week. And you’re sure you’ve never seen him before?”

“Positive!” Lance swallowed his last bite. “I think I’d remember seeing someone as hot as Keith around, y’know. Though his name does sound familiar? Like, there’s someone around that goes by Keith that I kind of know, but I can’t picture who it is right now. Does that sound weird?”

“Nah, it happens,” Hunk patted him on the shoulder as Lance snatched the last donut. They’d only grabbed half a dozen, after all. “I mean, maybe you’ve seen him before, and it just slipped your mind. Even if you find him half as hot as you keep saying he is, you still might have forgotten him. Especially since you never really had any significant contact with him before all of this last week. It wouldn’t be the first time. Remember when you flirted with Nyma on three separate occasions before you realized she was the same person?”

“Don’t remind me,” Lance muttered.

“Or the time you flirted with Rolo when you forgot he was dating her?”

“ _ Don’t remind me _ ,” he repeated.

“Okay, but what about the time you flirted with Allura at  _ Juniberries _ , right in front of Shiro, and then flirted with Shiro right after?”

“Hunk, buddy, you’re not helping,” Lance’s tone was flat, and he took an extra large bite of donut to drown out the memories. He failed, remembering vividly how Allura had just rolled her eyes, and he’d smoothly turned to Shiro and winked and–nope. He needed to forget about that. “I just don’t get why Blue picked  _ now _ of all times to start acting up! She’s a good dog, and she doesn’t just jump on people out of the blue like that.”

Internally, he both laughed and groaned at the inadvertent pun–Blue out of the blue–but then froze.

He was staring at his feet, his size ten blue Converse, when he noticed the startling lack of dog.

“Hunk,” he said sharply.

“Huh?”

“Hunk, where is Blue?”

They shared a glance, and then looked down at their feet and all around the bench before springing upright. Lance let out a string of curses as he stumbled to his feet, some in English and some in Spanish. Hunk managed to quip at him to watch his language as they scrambled around to look for the Aussie.

“Blue!” Lance shouted, nearly tripping over the empty donut box. Hunk scooped it up and tossed it in the bin nearby as he repeated the cry. Lance could feel a ball of anxiety growing in his chest the longer he scanned the park and didn’t see the familiar canine. “Hunk, buddy, I’ll go this way and you go that way and we’ll meet back here in ten, ‘kay?”

“Go!” Hunk motioned, already turning and jogging the opposite direction.

“Love you!” Lance called after his friend, who waved back over his shoulder. Lance then turned and bolted, trying to ignore the twisting feeling in his gut. As he ran, he whistled a few times and called, “Blue!  _ Donde carajo fuiste?! _ ”

Lance ignored the looks he was getting from other people in the park. Sure, they didn’t want their morning routine interrupted, but finding his dog was a lot more important than these forty-somethings reading their newspapers and drinking their coffees in peace. At least to him it was.

Perhaps only Pidge and Hunk knew how much Blue meant to him, but that was alright. They’d been there, too. When he’d adopted her, he’d been struggling with his confidence and all of his shortcomings as an artist, and he’d been in a slump. People would laugh it off and say it was natural for all artists–and maybe it was–but that didn’t make it feel any better when he picked up a pencil and sketched and never saw anything worthwhile in the scattering of lines across the page. And then he’d met Blue. She’d been brought to  _ Balmera _ and had been withdrawn, distrustful. Rax wanted to send her to another shelter, but Shay had convinced him otherwise and had brought Blue out with her to the store side one day, and that was all it took. She had nudged Lance’s knee, looked up at him, and barked softly. 

Shay told him it was the first interaction she’d initiated with anyone since she’d been dropped off.

Two weeks later, he was apologizing to Hunk and Pidge with a sheepish grin, the Aussie exploring the living room at the end of her leash, and they had sighed and relented with ease. Hunk had unhooked the leash and Pidge had warned him what would happen if Blue damaged any of her tech, and she had fit herself so perfectly into the home that Lance didn’t know what he’d do without her.

It was Blue stopping at his favorite spot by the creek for a nap that had helped him get back into his painting again.

Fighting past the lump in his throat, Lance called for her again. And again.

He made his loop around his half of the park, and then doubled back to do it  _ again _ , before returning to the rendezvous with Hunk in a mounting panic. He resorted to interrupting people and asking them if they’d seen her, but he had no success.

“Hunk!” his voice was a lot tighter than he’d expected when he addressed his friend, coming to a breathless stop by the bench they’d started on. Hunk was jogging back towards him as he hunched, hands on his knees, to suck in a few desperate breaths before asking, hurriedly, “Hunk, did you see her?”

“No, man, I didn’t see her anywhere,” Hunk frowned, his voice wavering. Lance felt the panic mounting in his chest. “She’s gotta be close, Lance. Let’s keep looking and asking after her!”

Lance nodded mutely, his throat constricting. He cleared it, painfully, and turned to scan the area again. He couldn’t find the familiar fur coat anywhere, and he let out a pitiful sound from the back of his throat. Hunk’s warm hand squeezed his shoulder in comfort. Hunk then turned to ask a man walking by with a newspaper if he’d seen Blue. Lance tuned out the snarky response as soon as he said he hadn’t.

After a while, Lance’s panic threatened to flood his eyes. Lance reached to wave at a woman jogging by, catching her attention.

She slowed and pulled her earbuds out, raising an eyebrow in curiosity as she asked, “Anything I can help you with?”

“Sorry for interrupting your run, but have you seen a dog?” his voice shook more than he’d hoped. “She’s an Australian Shepherd with a blue collar, and I have this picture of her on my phone–”

“Oh, that dog?” she peered at Lance’s phone, and after a moment said, “I think I saw one like her watching an artist painting over by the creek. I thought she was his, but you might check just in case.”

“I will!” his voice cracked a little, and Lance was probably a bit too enthusiastic, but it was the closest he’d gotten to any information. And unless someone else, by coincidence, had an Aussie that liked watching artists at work, then it could be Blue. “Thanks for your help.”

With a smile, she answered, “Hope you find your dog,” before putting her music back in and waving. She started her jog again, and Lance turned to Hunk for just a moment before turning and bolting the way she’d come. The artist and dog by the creek was his best bet, and he had to  _ know _ if it was Blue or not.

His feet carried him more quickly through the park than he’d thought possible, and then he found himself slowing as he rounded the corner near the creek. He spotted a portable easel all set up, a wash of reds and oranges and yellows splashed across a canvas, black hair pulled back in a messy ponytail, and an Aussie laying a few feet behind, just watching lazily as the artist’s strokes glided across his canvas.

Three things hit him at the same time.

The first was that it was definitely Blue, as she turned to him and her tail twitched before looking back at the painter.

The second was that the artist was sitting in  _ his _ spot. The one that Lance always used, the place he was determined to make a good painting from. And that what he had so far on his canvas was good, too.  _ Shit _ .

The third, and perhaps most shocking, was that the artist glanced up at his approach, thick rimmed glasses sliding down his nose, and Lance recognized Keith.

The first thing he could think to say was, “I thought you didn’t like my dog,” as he knelt down to give her a good scratch. Keith, in confusion, turned around to look as Hunk came up, wheezing, behind Lance. “If you don’t like Blue, why’d you kidnap her?”

Blinking, Keith deadpanned, “I didn’t even know she was there. You mean you lost track of her  _ again _ ?”

Lance bristled. He was too relieved that she was still here to be truly mad, but he still retorted, “I did no such thing! She just…”

“Yeah, we did,” Hunk picked up when Lance sheepishly trailed off. “We were talking, and Blue slipped away from us, and we didn’t notice and then we ran all around the park looking for her until a jogger told us she’d seen her over here. Sorry about that!”

Keith turned his attention to Hunk and looked at him for a moment before asking slowly, “...And who are you?”

“Oh! Right! I’m so sorry!” Hunk waved his hands around, more like a flail, and quickly added, “My name’s Hunk. Hunk Garrett! I’m Lance’s best friend and roommate–along with Pidge, but she’s not here, so I guess that doesn’t matter. How do you guys know each other?”

“This is Keith,” Lance said before Keith could introduce himself. He closed his mouth and frowned a little– _ it’s not cute, Lance, stop thinking that _ –as Lance continued, “Mulletman extraordinaire–”

“– _ Lance _ –” Keith groaned, but couldn’t say anything else.

“–and the one who was so rude to Blue the other day,” Lance had raised his voice above Keith’s. With a tentative smile, he gave Blue some more attention before pushing himself back to his feet and looking towards Keith’s painting.

“She  _ tackled me _ ,” Keith responded, sighing. “Blue knocked me  _ to the ground _ . I think I can be forgiven for being a bit pissed off about some stranger’s dog jumping at me.”

“Hush, it’s all in the past,  _ asere _ ,” Lance waved his fingers, laughing a little. He still felt guilty over it, so he was trying to get past the subject. “Whatcha painting there, Keithy-boy? I didn’t know you were an artist.”

“None of your business,” Keith’s voice was resigned as Lance casually leaned over his shoulder.

Lance, however, was staring. 

Those brush strokes were the stuff of Lance’s dreams–and also his nightmares. They were as familiar as his own, if only because they had a home in every single painting by the person who kept beating him out for all the local gallery showings.

_ Keith _ .

“ _ Kogane _ ,” Lance breathed, and Keith jumped a little next to him. “Keith fucking  _ Kogane _ ! Oh my  _ God _ , I thought the name Keith was familiar. You’re that artist that keeps getting in all the galleries I try for!” Lance threw his hands up dramatically. “Of all the random people for Blue to get attached to, it had to be my  _ rival _ !”

“Wait, you’re  _ that  _ Keith?” Hunk piped up, and Lance nearly had a heart attack. He’d apologize to his best friend for forgetting his presence later, but that moment was not now. “The oil painter, Keith? The one who uses mostly warm colors and had the  _ Inferno _ showing over at  _ Juniberries _ like, three months ago, Keith?”

“I...yes?” Keith blinked in surprise, glancing from Lance to Hunk. “And how do  _ you guys _ know me?”

“I’m  _ Lance _ !”

His voice cracked at his dramatics, but Keith just stared blankly for a minute.

“I know?”

“No no no, you  _ don’t get it _ . I’m Lance. Lance McClain. I use watercolors, mostly. Got second in that new painters’ competition last year that you _ won _ ? Y’know. Keith and Lance, neck and neck?” he was gesticulating wildly now, waiting for some sort of recognition on Keith’s face. “Oh, come  _ on _ . Don’t you remember that?”

_ Please remember me. Please _ .

“I…” Keith started, slowly, but Hunk swooped in.

“Here,” he angled his phone towards Keith. “They were side by side, and Lance had been staring at yours for ages so I took a picture of them!” he chirped. Lance groaned inwardly, but watched as recognition dawned on Keith’s features.

“ _ The Tailor _ ,” Keith blurted, and Lance whipped his head up. “The painting. You called it  _ The Tailor _ . I have no idea why, because the information said it was...a pier? I think?”

“You  _ do _ remember!” the happiness, the  _ something _ that Lance couldn’t quite place bubbled up inside, and he beamed. “You do remember me! Ha!”

“Well, he remembers your work,” Hunk interjected helpfully.

“So Keith, Buddy,” Lance wedged himself next to Keith on the bench, dropping his arm across the other artist’s shoulders. “Pal. You gotta share because those strokes are  _ phenomenal _ . I’ve tried replicating them and I just  _ can’t _ .”

“I’d imagine watercolor would make it difficult,” Keith responded dryly.

“With oils and acrylics, you ass, I’ve tried with oils and acrylics,” Lance flapped his hand dismissively, leaning forward to examine Keith’s work even more closely. “I don’t  _ just _ do watercolor. It’s just my preference, like oil is yours. I seem to remember some pretty slammin’ ink wash paintings you did in the style of Shiro, though. Man, I love Shiro’s stuff–but that’s beside the point.  _ How do you do it? _ ”

“I can’t really  _ explain _ ,” Keith reached out to remove Lance’s arm from his shoulders. 

Keith didn’t ask for the lanky artist to move, though, and Lance considered that a victory. And then immediately scolded himself because why would  _ that _ be a  _ victory _ ? It’s not like he  _ wanted _ to be close to Keith. Nope. Not at all. 

Lance refocused when Keith mumbled, “I just kind of  _ do it _ . It’s just the way I paint.”

With an exaggerated sigh, Lance slumped back, bracing his hands against the rear edge of the stone bench. He remembered tumbling head over heels backwards off of it one too many times, so he always remembered to brace himself now. And then, continuing with his dramatics, he said, “Ugh, that’s  _ tragic _ . I’ll never learn the stroke that could save my little artist life. I’ll go forever with no technique, no talent at all for oils, left to rot in being a one trick pony.”

His dramatics faded a little near the end, and a slight fear crept in. His tone barely wavered, but Lance felt it in his chest. The anxiety creeping in, almost as strongly as it had the moment he started to worry he’d lost Blue.

“There’s nothing wrong with being better at watercolor,” Keith leaned forward, biting his lip as he dragged a brush across his canvas–when had he started painting again?–and his violet eyes flicked towards Lance for a moment. “Besides, you had that one good oil painting in that new painters’ gallery, too, right? The first three prizes got to put three pieces each into the show. You had another watercolor, but you also had an oil painting. I think you called it... _ Gratitude _ ? It was of a flower. A hi–no, a hy...dra?”

Lance’s head whipped around and he knew he was staring, open-mouthed, at Keith. 

Of all the...Keith didn’t remember Lance’s  _ name, _ but he was remembering things about his work. Paintings that Lance had done, even what their titles were, and some of the information beneath. And he, an oil expert, had complimented Lance’s first oil piece after adopting Blue.

“A hydrangea,” he managed not to croak it out. “It was a hydrangea.”

“That’s it,” Keith clicked his tongue in agreement, switching out the color he was using for an accentuating gold. “I mean, you can tell by some of the technique that you’re more used to watercolor, but that’s not a bad thing. You might have thinned your paints too much with the linseed oil because it was more like you’re used to? But you had to have a lot of patience to layer it up and work with it like that. It looked good.”

It took a lot of effort to bite back the excited squeak that rose to his throat. 

“Thanks, man,” he said instead, his voice just a tad higher than it should have been as he clapped Keith on the back after ensuring that his paintbrush was nowhere near his canvas. “That means a lot coming from my rival. But just you wait, I’ll have you beaten out for a gallery soon!”

“I’ll be waiting,” a grin teased at the corner of Keith’s mouth, and Lance felt his heart leap. 

_ Not good, abort. Abort mission _ .

“It’s a promise,” Lance retorted, ignoring his conscience and the way it was telling him to back off. The quirk of Keith’s lips and the way his eyes glinted in amusement behind his glasses made it impossible for him to ignore the thudding of his heartbeat and the attraction he’d been denying since day one.

Keith was  _ still _ hot, and it was still incredibly unfair.

“Good,” Keith raised his hand and flicked his fingers at Lance. “Now either shut up or go away, I want to paint some more while I still have this lighting.”

Lance let out another exaggerated sound, a sigh this time, and huffed out, “Alright, alright. But this conversation is far from over, Keith! Mark my words!”

“Mhm,” was the noncommittal response. Lance called for Blue as Hunk said a goodbye to Keith, apologizing for interrupting his painting and for not really talking much. Keith grinned at Hunk and actually said it was  _ nice _ to meet him, and Lance’s pulse quickened in his ears when he laughed at one of Hunk’s parting statements.

Clearing his throat quickly as his neck started to burn, Lance announced loudly, “Later, Keith, have fun painting! Hunk, if you don’t come with us, we’ll leave you behind and see you back at home!”

He waved and turned to leave. He heard Hunk rush the rest of his farewell and a few quickened steps followed until his best friend was at his side.

“Keith said you could stay if you were quiet,” Hunk managed once they were walking together. “I can’t believe you just passed on a perfect opportunity to observe your rival at work! And the looks you were giving him–”

“–Nope!” Lance interrupted, his voice  _ definitely _ higher than it should have been. “We’re not going there, Hunk, my buddy, my brother, not today, not  _ ever _ .”

“You’re turning red–”

“– _ Nope _ –”

“–and I swear, he was looking–”

“–Hunk, we are not having this conversation!” Lance squeaked. “We’re not talking about how fucking hot he is, or how unfair it is that  _ he’s _ the artist that keeps beating me out of gallery shows, and we’re not talking about how cute he is when he concentrates or how– _ fuck _ .”

Lance, with Blue’s leash hooked around his wrist, lifted his hands to drag them down his face with a groan.

“...In my defense, buddy, you’d already told me he was unfairly attractive once today,” Hunk offered in a placating manner, giving a sheepish smile. “And I mean, even though it was before everything with Blue and everything with Keith, those words had already come out of your mouth before I ever thought about saying anything. And it’s not my fault that you’re super obvious when you’re into someone.” 

Lance laughed humorlessly, but sent a genuine, if fragile, smile back at his best friend.

“Yeah. But he still kinda hates me,” Lance lifted his shoulders in a halfhearted shrug. “It’s better not to think about it if he feels that way, y’know?”

“He didn’t seem like he hated you,” Hunk frowned a little, brow furrowed in thought. And probably concern. “Looked to me like you guys had known each other longer than a couple of days, though? It looked like you were pretty good friends.”

A little bit of warmth flooded through him, and Lance relaxed. One of the best things about Hunk was that he always, without fail, knew what to say. Lance could be in a far darker place and Hunk could still bring the light right to him. Hunk  _ was _ the light.

“I mean, maybe. Maybe we are friends now,” Lance relented easily with a shrug. Hunk’s words helped him relax. But then he continued, offering another tiny grin as he said, “I hope we are, at least. I’d hate it if he still hated me, especially after I lied to Brenda about dating him to get him my discount and risked Rax’s wrath to do it.”

“You are a braver man than I,” Hunk patted him on the shoulder.

Lance snorted and nudged his best friend as he teased, “Yeah, you won’t even risk Rax’s wrath long enough to ask Shay out on a date.”

Hunk spluttered, and Lance laughed, allowing Blue to pull him towards home.

He’d think about his doubts and fears and how to deal with how attractive Keith was later. He’d remember the way those violet irises shined in amusement behind the lenses of thick-framed black glasses later, and he’d worry about the way that Keith’s chuckle sent his heart stuttering against his ribcage. For now, Lance would think more about his paintings, and how Keith, his rival, had complimented his work instead. Had remembered his work, even if he hadn’t remembered his name.

If an artist that Lance admired, though he’d never admit it, had noticed his work, then maybe he had a chance to get somewhere.

His fingers itched to paint.

* * *

 

Keith groaned at the way Red was nuzzling against his neck. The Abysinnian cat was usually more standoffish, but he could tell that she really wanted his attention when she went out of her way to wake him up. She was extra affectionate sometimes, as if to make up for the periods of distrust she put him through. But after staying up all night working on one of his paintings and finally falling into bed around five in the morning, his overly affectionate cat rousing him at eight forty-three was less than ideal. 

“Fine,” he grumbled around a near mouthful of tail. “I’ll get up.”

Red meowed at him, pawing at his nose as he slowly sat up. She slid to his lap with a disgruntled sound and then stepped off of him, glaring.

“Well, if you wanted to cuddle you shouldn’t have tried to stuff your tail in my mouth,” Keith sassed the feline, putting his feet flat on the wooden floor. A chill seeped up, but he rolled his shoulders and pushed up from the mattress, yawning. “I’ll take you for a walk or something, Red. How’s that?”

She meowed plaintively and and hopped toward the edge of his bed, looking up at him.

“Take that as a yes,” he snorted, turning to find something to wear. Standing around in his fraying Deadpool pajama bottoms was a little chilly first thing in the morning, and if he was going to be running on less than an adequate amount of sleep, he wanted to make a pit stop at the  _ Castle of Lions _ to make sure he got caffeine and a muffin or something.

He didn’t really pay attention to what jeans he was pulling on. They were dark, like most of the pairs he owned, and he just had to watch his step as Red decided to twine between his legs and be as generally in-the-way as possible. He pulled on some band t-shirt that Shiro had given him last year without really looking at the logo and then followed it with a red and white hoodie. 

Finger-combing his hair, Keith nabbed a pair of socks from the underwear drawer that hung open, lopsided on the tracks, and made his way to slump on the couch and put them on. Red followed, meowing at him as the tags on her collar clicked together gently. He sighed at her with a sort of exasperated fondness reserved for the feline’s affection and his brother’s lectures, reaching over to give her a soft scratch beneath the chin before searching for his shoes.

A few minutes later, with Red’s leash secured firmly around her, Keith was locking the door behind him as she tried to tangle herself in his legs.

He barely remembered slipping through the multitude of cats at Coran’s to order a plain coffee–and he didn’t imagine the way Lance’s nose would wrinkle at the idea of it, or how cute it would be because Lance was an asshole he just met–and didn’t even remember what flavor of muffin he’d ordered until he and Red crossed the street into a park and the taste of blueberry exploded on his tongue.

Red chose that moment to step right in front of him, and Keith stumbled a half a step to avoid kicking her, cursing a little when coffee sloshed over the side of his cup. At least Coran had put a lid on it for him.

As if she was innocent, Red lifted herself up to rest her front paws on his shin, just an inch or two below the knee, and she meowed at him before dropping down and turning her gaze down the path to the left. He grinned a little and started walking that direction. The feline started trotting along quite happily beside him, earning a few odd looks from strangers, but it didn’t matter. Taking his cat for walks was healthy–for both of them.

Even  _ if _ said cat had woken him after only about three and a half hours of sleep.

And Red was even happier when they rounded the corner near the creek, her tail swishing back and forth as the bench they enjoyed came into view. She might dislike water as much as the next cat up close, but she liked sitting at this particular spot just as much as he did–as long as she could wander toward the creek of her own volition for a drink or to look at all of the goldfish that someone had filled it with.

She came to a stop as her owner did, though, letting out an irate huff, or what Keith assumed was one, as she craned her head around to glare at him. It was as if she was asking,  _ why aren’t we going to the bench _ ? and the answer was quite simple.

There was another artist there.

He was sitting on the very end of the bench, closest to Keith and Red, with an easel between them. His bag of supplies was on the ground next to him, unlike when Keith painted and set his own paints on the bench beside him while he worked. For a moment, all Keith saw were some ratty blue Converse and a pair of dingy jeans with splotches of paint, old and new, staining the denim. But then the painter leaned back, tongue poking out in concentration, and the bottom of Keith’s stomach dropped out.

Keith caught movement from the corner of his eye, and his gaze trailed to the ground on the other side of the artist, where Blue lifted her head to regard him lazily. She blinked at him once, as if to acknowledge his presence, and then rested her head on her paws again, her eyes lifting upward to the board in front of Lance.

_ Lance _ .

The way he smiled in a satisfied way, leaning back and using a towel in his hand to gently dry his brush, made Keith's stomach lurch, though not unpleasantly. Lance's blue eyes sharpened as he glanced out across the creek, turning away from where Keith stood unnoticed, and then they narrowed in concentration as he started to blend some watercolors on the palette in his hand. It was a cheap white plastic palette, but Keith understood why he used it when the colors popped out against the white, even with ten feet between them. The greenish tinted blue reminded Keith of the painting of Lance's, the one called  _ The Tailor, _ that he'd stared at for an embarrassing length of time.

Keith could have watched Lance paint for an equally embarrassing length of time, unnoticed by the object of his attention, if it wasn't for the disgruntled, drawn out  _ meow _ , courtesy of a frustrated Red struggling at the end of her leash, that drew Lance's startled gaze right as he raised his brush.

He blinked once in surprise, squinted a little, and asked, “How long have you been standing there?!”

“I just got here,” Keith responded nearly immediately, but Lance seemed to take it in stride, offering a grin.

“I just can’t believe you’re back here so soon, Mr. Mulletman,” Lance turned his eyes back to the canvas, a smooth brush stroke following. Keith was so drawn in by the look of concentration in his eyes that he couldn’t even find the energy to argue the nickname. “You were just here yesterday.”

“So were you,” Keith retorted, crossing the distance to appease his feline friend. When he reached Lance’s side, the curiosity was too much to bear. Lance had seen him at work yesterday, so it was time for Keith to watch while Lance worked.

“Trying to size me up and steal ideas from the competition, are you?!” Lance’s voice went pitchy, though Keith could still hear the jest in his tone. 

_ Cute _ .

“Even if I  _ was _ ,” Keith put emphasis on that final word, “I wouldn’t learn anything from you.”

The amazing part about Lance’s reaction was the delay. He stayed composed enough to finish the delicate swirl of water he’d been painting, and then he turned to Keith with the most affronted look Keith thought he could muster.

“Excuse  _ you _ , I would be a fucking  _ brilliant _ teacher, Sir Mullet!” Lance pointed with his brush, frowning petulantly at Keith. “I’m sure there are a gazillion tips and tricks I could teach you about this shit that even you don’t know, despite your like, ten million gallery shows and all that. Hmph.”

Even the way that Lance bit his lip in his half-hearted fit of offense was adorable, and Keith forced himself not to think that way of the asshole he just met.

With a sigh, Keith slumped on the opposite end of the bench, even as Red hopped up to nudge the side of Lance’s leg, inquisitively. “Oh, come on, Lance. I use oils. What use would watercolor tricks be for me? I don’t have the patience for it.”

Lance snorted.

“And you have the patience for oils? Fuck, Keith, they take at least ten times as long to dry.”

“That gives me plenty of time to blend and fix my colors. You add water too many times on a watercolor painting, and the watercolor paper starts flaking, and then the color turns muddy. After that, fixing it turns impossible.”

Lance hummed to show he was listening as he carefully finished out the shadow of a rock in the creek, and then he noted, tone amused, “So you don't have patience for watercolor because you have to be as close to perfect as possible to begin with, eh?”

Keith wished he could see the expression on Lance's face. His lips were probably quirked into a teasing smirk, his eyes twinkling mischievously, and all at once Keith decided it was probably a good thing he couldn't see it.

Lance continued before Keith had formed a response, though, diving back into conversation with, “I can't believe it. The almighty Keith Kogane, mullet artist extraordinaire, can't get his colors perfect on the first try. The artistic genius that won last year’s local new painter competition struggles with getting the right color; I think I need a moment to let this sink in.”

Lance made a dramatic sigh, and from the way his arm shifted, Keith knew that Lance was clutching his chest. And then Lance leaned back, tilting his head to look at Keith upside down, and the way his hair fell away from his forehead only accentuated his long, slim features. His lips curled into a smile, and even upside down, Lance managed to look handsome, and Keith cursed the picturesque scene, the lighting, and the way that the energetic man in front of him didn’t seem like a stranger anymore, even after such a short span of time. 

And then he  _ winked _ .

Keith forced a groan and tore his eyes away, looking over Lance instead, to the painting. He wasn’t really able to focus on what he was seeing, but he could at least admire the soft, gentle way all his colors flowed together. It contrasted Lance’s exuberant personality in the best of ways.

The view was blocked when Lance flopped forward once more with a laugh, stretching his arms before gathering his painting supplies again in preparation to continue.

“So what brings you out here?” Lance asked conversationally, even as he dipped a brush into his water and started to bring the already dried colors on his cheap plastic palette back to life. “Aside from my wonderful personality and dashing good looks, I mean.”

“My cat, Red,” Keith answered, purposely ignoring Lance's boasts, and then realized he wasn’t holding Red’s leash. When had he let go? He sat forward to look around quickly, but then spotted her curled up on top of Blue,  _ sleeping _ . With yet another groan, Keith continued, “She wouldn’t let me sleep. I got  _ three and a half _ hours of sleep only to get a taste of cat tail, and then she has the audacity to sleep on your dog now that we’re here.”

Lance snorted, and Keith saw the telltale way his head cocked to look down at Blue. And then he stalled, his hand freezing before the canvas. Keith was about to ask what was wrong when Lance asked, suddenly, “The kitten.”

“Huh?”

Before Keith could kick himself for his  _ brilliant _ answer, Lance elaborated with, “Red. Red is the  _ kitten _ . The kitten from that one painting in the gallery show you had at  _ Juniberries _ a few months ago. That was Red, wasn’t it?”

He’d forgotten how surprisingly observant Lance was when it came to his pieces and his shows, but Keith could recall the exact piece. In fact, it was one of only three that he’d ever hung on the walls in his apartment, and it had a place right by the couch that it featured. Whenever he was in a slump, he looked at that painting of Red to remind himself of how he’d pulled himself together after the accident, and how he’d decided to pursue art. How Red had been a pivotal piece in that decision, ever since she had gamboled over to him at the adoption event at  _ Balmera _ when he was only there to get Allura’s prissy cat, Princess, some of the stupid expensive food she preferred.

When Lance craned his head around to look at Keith, he shook himself and answered, “Y-yeah, that was Red.”

Lance gave a lopsided grin before turning back to his painting and actually getting to work again. After a few long, fluid strokes with his brush, Lance remarked, “She’s got some distinctive markings. It must be fun to paint them.”

A smile of his own crawled across Keith’s features. He leaned back, pulling his gaze from Lance and instead staring up at the trees.

“Yeah, it really is,” he acknowledged softly, glancing down at where Red snuggled closer to Blue. “Do you paint Blue much?”

Lance was quiet for a while, and Keith didn’t press. He was probably concentrating. 

At length, he responded, “I draw her a lot. There are only a few paintings that have ever turned out, and I never put them out for shows or anything. Maybe someday I’ll do a show with just a bunch of never before seen paintings of Blue. That’ll get the critics and the dog lovers to go crazy, eh?” he laughed a little, and Keith’s eyes trailed back to him. He couldn’t really keep his eyes away from the lines of Lance’s shoulders or the gentle beauty that was exploding from the tips of his paintbrushes.

“I’d go to that show,” he found himself saying. The words dropped easily, and he could scarcely find reason to be embarrassed over them.

“Thanks, buddy,” Lance’s voice was light and cheerful. “You should do a show for Red, too. We could fight over who gets the main display in  _ Juniberries _ .”

“Maybe someday,” Keith chuckled a little, trying to picture it.

He liked the idea of sharing the space with Lance and his work. Their styles were opposing, but Keith thought it would be visually appealing. It might take some work and an expert arrangement, but that was what his brother and Allura were for.  And it really sounded like the kind of show that Allura might like to have in her gallery, so his imagination had faint hopes attached.

“I’ll give you a run for your money,” Lance warned. “Don’t get cocky, got it? I  _ will _ defeat you! That patch of wall is  _ mine _ , d’you hear me, man?”

“Don’t bet on it,” Keith tossed back with a snort, trying not to watch the way the dappled light played across Lance’s back. “I’ve had that gallery how many more times than you already, hmmm?”

With an exaggerated groan, Lance groused, “Low blow, man. Low blow.”

After a moment, both of them started chuckling softly and then fell into a comfortable silence, enjoying the day and allowing their furry companions to sleep in each other’s company. Keith watched the sparse painting flourish bit by bit as Lance brought the colors out with strokes that Keith envied.

Lance, however, broke the silence after a while with a casual, “Really, though. I think you should learn watercolor, Keith.”

With a sigh, Keith turned to face Lance. He had done the same, wiping his brushes carefully.

“I already told you I don’t have the patience for it.”

“And I already said that you  _ have _ to have the patience for it if you have patience for fuckin’ oils, man,” Lance waved his damp towel dramatically, and Keith drew back to avoid the flailing. “And even if it’s a different kind of patience, maybe learning it will help get rid of that crease in your forehead.”

Keith’s breath caught in his throat as Lance casually reached forward with his thumb to smooth at whatever crease he’d mentioned. The pad of his thumb was cool and smooth against Keith’s skin, and the gentle, teasing look in Lance’s blue eyes made Keith even more flustered. Lance’s eyes widened after a few moments, his expression changing to one of surprise and  _ embarrassment _ ? Whatever it was, his hand dropped from Keith’s forehead and Lance averted his gaze.

Keith had to keep telling himself that he was imagining the flush on Lance’s cheeks.

“And when you get more patience, you might even be able to get a date, even though your hairstyle is older than my grandma.”

“Stay fixated on my hair much longer, and I might think there’s more to it than you making fun of it,” Keith sassed, trying to ignore the way his own cheeks were burning. He also had to fight the urge to tug at the ends of his dark hair self-consciously.

“I– _ excuse you _ ?!” Lance’s tone went shrill. “I don’t know what you’re talking about! Don’t call it a  _ fixation _ ! I’m trying to tell you that your fashion choices suck! There’s nothing else! Nope!  _ Nada _ , nothing, zip, zilch, zero. Your hair is a travesty.”

“Keep telling yourself that,” Keith answered dryly, amused. He couldn’t even find it in himself to be hurt by Lance’s repeated hair insults when calling it a  _ fixation _ got such a great rise out of the watercolor painter.

Lance sniffed and turned stiffly back to his work.

Keith had to, once again, tell himself that the red at the tip of Lance’s ears and up the back of his neck was imagined. 

_ Wishful thinking _ .

He shook his head to dismiss the thought, outwardly forcing a chuckle, and turned his gaze to Red and Blue, still curled up and snoozing beside the bench. As he watched, he saw Red lazily lift her head to watch Lance stiffly add a few strokes to the creek in his painting, and then she stretched, changed position, and curled up once more, all without rousing Blue. Keith envied the feline for her ability to fall asleep  _ anywhere _ because he was feeling the effects of too little sleep. And his coffee, when he lifted it to take another drink, had lost its warmth. He made a face at the lukewarm brew and set it aside before allowing himself to look back at the painting over Lance’s shoulder.

A few moments later, Keith’s phone startled him. If the way Lance’s spine straightened and he whipped his head around was any indication, it had also caught him off guard. And that observation wasn’t including the strangled squeak Lance let out when he pulled his hand away from his work to avoid a messy brush stroke.

“What the hell was that?!” he demanded after a moment of stunned silence, whipping his head around to give Keith a betrayed glare. “Ooooh, I get it. You’re just trying to sabotage your toughest competition, is that it?!”

“As if,” Keith snorted, unlocking his phone to view the message.

**_Ulaz:_ ** _ Hey man, don’t forget that you have to take down your work this Saturday so the other guy can put his up! _

Lance spluttered indignantly and groused, “Oh, so now you’re making  _ light _ of the competition. You must have other ways to sabotage me later then, right?”

“Jesus, Lance, not everything is about this...rivalry or whatever you’re imagining,” Keith rolled his eyes. “My friend Ulaz was just reminding me that I have to take down my show in his bar this Saturday so the next guy can put one up.”

“Wait,  _ what _ ?! You’ve got a show in a  _ bar _ ?!”

Keith quirked the corner of his lips up in a smirk and asked, “Jealous?”

“N-no! Of course not! How could I be jealous of  _ you _ ?”

Lance was pouting. There was no other word for the gentle pucker of his lips or the way his lower lip was sticking out, or even the nearly scandalized look that he was giving Keith. Despite his best efforts to ignore the fluttering in his stomach over this near  _ stranger _ , Keith couldn’t help but think it was kind of cute. Cute enough, in fact, to make him feel just a tiny bit guilty.

“Want to come to the bar with me on Friday night to see it?” Keith asked, averting his eyes to fiddle with the cold coffee in his hand.

There was an awkward strangled sound, and then, with a slightly tight tone, started, “Keith. Keithy-poo, my man, my bro, are you asking me on a  _ da– _ ”

“You might be able to make yourself useful and help me take the show down, too.”

Keith almost regretted cutting Lance off, because it sounded suspiciously like he was about to say the word  _ date _ –but of course Keith didn’t regret that because he didn’t have any romantic inclinations towards Lance whatsoever. Lance was attractive, of course, and Keith couldn’t ignore that. But going so far as to almost hope for Lance to ask about  _ dates _ ? For having just met him a week ago, Keith felt like he was almost too... _ attached _ . 

It felt strange and new, and Keith normally would have ignored the sensation, but this was  _ Lance _ . He was everything that was warm and sunny, all wrapped up in an aesthetically pleasing human shape, and Keith felt like he'd known this other painter far longer than he had. For a lifetime, maybe.

Shaking his head, the oil painter turned his attention back to Lance as he finally found words that weren't indignant fragments.

“Why I–how  _ dare _ –I’ll have you know that I am a perfectly useful person, thank you  _ very _ much, Mr. McMullet!”

“That's still not an answer,” Keith quipped back.

With a sniff, Lance turned his back and announced, his tone a little pitchy, “It's a date.”

Keith nearly toppled from the bench, his ears and neck burning from the word. He told himself that Lance didn't mean it that way, but his heart was still racing.

_ Fuck. _


	3. Chapter 3

Lance buried his face in the couch pillow and groaned pitifully while Hunk rubbed gentle circles on his shoulders. 

“Okay, buddy, I got that it was something to do with Keith, but I didn’t catch anything else,” the human teddy bear said soothingly. “I mean, you were talking really fast, and I think you even cursed in Spanish and English, and you were talking into a pillow the entire time, so I think I should be forgiven for not quite catching everything. It was like a mumble-y, mopey version of your usual excited babble and–”

“What Hunk means is  _ spill _ ,” Pidge drawled from the armchair across the room, the clickety-clack of her keyboard ringing out louder than the sitcom playing, ignored, in the background. “We heard  _ Keith _ and something to do with you being an  _ idiot _ and we want to know why you’re insulting yourself. We all know I’m the only one allowed to insult you, after all.”

“You’re a gremlin,” Lance lifted his head enough to glare at Pidge, and then sighed and dropped the pillow to his lap. With a long breath, he repeated himself. “I  _ said _ that I saw Keith while I was painting today, and we talked for awhile and I met his cat, Red, and  _ then _ I found out that he has a show up in a bar– _ Blade of Marmora _ , I think it’s called?–and he invited me to go, and I started to ask if he was asking me out on a date, and before I could finish he said I could make myself useful for once and help him take the show down, and then I told him I was  _ always  _ useful, and when he said I hadn’t answered the question, I just said  _ ‘it’s a date, _ ’ and I honestly can’t remember the rest of everything that happened because I panicked. I panicked and kind of spaced and I think I’m still panicking and–”

Lance stopped when he realized that Pidge was laughing. And it wasn’t just an amused snort, or a chuckle, but she had tossed her head back against the cushions of the chair she was in and was letting out a full-bodied laugh that shook her entire form.

“Calm down, Lance, buddy, you’ll be fine,” Hunk continued the soothing circles on his back. “It’s not like we didn’t already know you liked him.”

“I  _ don’t _ !” Lance protested, but his voice came out as a squeak.

Pidge started wheezing.

“Bro, I don’t want to say ‘ _ I told you so _ ’...” Hunk trailed off, but then continued, “I mean, I really do want to say it because I’m totally right, and you’re just in denial, but I also don’t want to be  _ that _ friend because Pidge has that covered–” she laughed even louder, not even offended by his words, “–but at the same time...buddy, I told you so. And you can’t even deny it when you squeaked the same way you did in sixth grade when you realized you liked Vanessa Carter–”

“– _ oh my God this is golden– _ ” Pidge wheezed, sitting her laptop haphazardly on the end table next to her while she curled up and clutched her sides.

“–not to mention that it’s also the same sound as when you found out you liked boys, too, when you saw Kevin Stevens without his shirt on–”

“ _ Huuuuuunk _ !” Lance interrupted, tone incredibly high pitched. “I get it, I get it! Fine, Keith is attractive and funny and  _ perfect, _ and I panicked because I might kind of like him, just a little because he’s so damn cute. Almost.  _ Maybe _ .”

Pidge slapped her knee and sucked in a long breath, tears in her eyes, and quipped, “Oh, please, Lance, you’re lying through your teeth!”

“Pidge,” Hunk tried, but she shushed him.

“No, no, no, Lance is crushing so hard it’s not even funny, Hunk, and I know you can see it too. Just because he’s stubborn and in denial doesn’t mean you get to deny me my fun,” she laughed again. “Lance, you should see your face. You look so betrayed!”

“Because that’s what this is!” he threw his hands up. “Betrayal! Treason in the highest degree! What about the bro code, you little devil child?”

“I’m hardly that much younger than you,” she retorted, clearing her throat a little. “Besides, you should consider it as a kindness. I’m telling you that you’re in denial and that you have  _ feelings _ so maybe you won’t make an even bigger fool of yourself later.”

“ _ Pidgisita _ ,” Lance whined, “don’t do this to me, not now. I’m having a  _ crisis _ .”

“If your definition of crisis is including your panic over gay feelings, Lance, you’re gonna have to give me something new,” Pidge took a deep breath to finish collecting herself and reached for her laptop again. “I think you’ve been panicking about this for, oh, ten years now.”

Lance let out another pitiful groan and buried his face in the pillow once more, trying to quash the image of Pidge’s shit-eating grin from his memory.

* * *

 

His phone was ringing.

Lance squinted through the dark of his room to see the dim light filtering through his curtains and the way his alarm clock boldly proclaimed  **_7:23 AM_ ** .

It was the crack of dawn on a fucking  _ Tuesday, _ and his phone was ringing. 

It may have been his second day off, and most people would answer the call and go back to sleep, but Lance was the type that couldn’t do that. When he was up, he was up for the day or at least until an afternoon nap, so he really didn’t appreciate the wake up call.

“Who the  _ hell _ ,” he grumbled, reaching blindly for the source of the obnoxious  _ Hakuna Matata _ that had roused him.

Lance lifted the phone up to read the caller ID before promptly dropping the phone on his face. He cursed before picking the phone back up and rubbing his nose, sitting up as he re-read the name there.

_ Juniberries <3 _

He didn’t remember ever hitting the green phone to answer a call as fast as he did in that moment.

“Hello?”

“Hello, is this Lance?” the smooth voice and accent on the other end could only belong to one woman. _Allura._ Allura Altea, the woman behind the best gallery in the city, which he'd idolized far before his pieces for last year's competition had been displayed within. His chest squeezed with anticipation and he cleared his throat a little.

“That’s me!” he answered with more gusto than necessary. “What can I do for you, gorgeous?”

Allura sighed, and even over the phone he could picture her amused grin and the way she always rolled her eyes at him when he flirted–with her or with anyone else.

After a moment, Lance asked, “Too much?”

“Always,” she replied with a chuckle. “Anyway, Coran and Shiro had an excellent idea for a new exhibition in a few months.”

“Aaaaand…?” Lance prompted when she fell silent.

“We recently had someone drop their show in late May and early June, and we were hoping that you and your potential colleague for the opening could come in this afternoon to meet and discuss arrangements.”

A few moments of stunned silence passed before Allura spoke again. “Lance?”

“Wait, wait.  _ Wait.  _ Hold the phone. Call the ambulance, I think I’m dying. No, I think I’m officially deceased. Are  _ you _ , Allura Altea, asking  _ me, _ Lance McClain, to have a show at  _ Juniberries _ ?!” His tone was pitchy by the end and he sucked in a breath. “I need a minute. Or three. Scratch that, I need  _ years _ to process your request, Princess.”

“When will you stop calling me that?” she sighed over the line. “Anyway, I need to know your answer. We were hoping that you could stop in at five tonight, giving our other artist time to finish his shift at work and meet us there.”

Thoughts were swirling inside his head, but the first thing Lance could ask was, “What kind of show is it? I mean, why are you using multiple artists?”

“Oh, right,” she chuckled a little, as if at herself, before continuing, “Coran suggested that a showcase of multiple artists, painters specifically, who focus on different mediums may be an interesting direction. Shiro agreed, and we narrowed it down to the comparison and contrast between oil painting and watercolors. Should you both agree to participate, I believe we could all work together and create perhaps the best show of the season. And before you say it,  _ no _ , I am not trying to trick you, Lance, I’m very sincerely asking you to give us a chance and come to a meeting at five.”

Lance loved seeing his watercolors next to other works. Seeing the different types of love and care that each artist put into his or her work, all the different ways they expressed themselves, made him feel alive. And sometimes the vibrancy of those that used thicker, more solid paints made his washed out watercolors come alive. Whoever Allura had chosen as an oil painter for the exhibition would probably never compare to Keith, but Lance would be crazy to give up this kind of opportunity.

“I’ll be there!”

His voice definitely did  _ not _ crack.

“Yeah, no, I’ll definitely be there. You said five, right?”

“Yes, I did,” he could hear the grin in her voice. Shit. She wasn’t ever going to let him live it down, so Lance had to take solace in the fact that at least she wouldn’t be as bad about it as Pidge would have in the same situation. “I’m glad you’ll consider it. Just come over to  _ Juniberries _ at five and we’ll go into the office to discuss the possibilities. Please bring your portfolio with you, Lance.”

“Sure thing, Princess!” he glanced over towards where he kept his portfolio. A glimpse of the sturdy black leather peeked out from beneath a pair of jeans he was sure he’d worn last Thursday, and he grimaced. He might as well do laundry while he waited for five to roll around. “I’ll even make sure to take a few pictures of some new stuff to get them in there.”

“That would be grand,” she sounded amused. Probably because she knew he’d be at least ten photos behind and that he’d shortly be begging Pidge to let him use her nice camera to get them ready and then turning to Hunk to print them. “See you then, Lance.”

“See you, ‘Lura,” he grinned into the receiver. “Bye!”

“Goodbye.”

As the line went dead, Lance sat still for a few long seconds, staring at the screen until it darkened in his hand. A moment later, he sprang from his bed with a victorious shout and a fist pump lifting high into the air.

_ Juniberries _ .

A show at  _ Juniberries _ , even if he was working with another artist, was a dream come true. Ever since he’d first seen the gallery, when he was younger and Allura’s late father was still alive and running the establishment, it was all he’d ever wanted from his art. Making a living from it would be great, yeah, but to have a show in  _ the _ gallery in town? Or at least his favorite? That was the biggest goal he’d set for himself when he’d finally started picking up the pieces that stepping into adulthood had scattered.

His door slammed open after a moment and he tripped over yesterday’s dirty t-shirt, faceplanting in the middle of his bedroom.

“ _ Comepinga _ ,” he groaned, lifting his head to see Hunk standing in the doorway. “Definitely laundry day.”

“Shit, I’m sorry, Lance!” he rushed into the room, kneeling down beside Lance as the lanky Cuban sat up and rubbed his nose. “I didn’t mean to scare you, you just screamed and I was worried that something had happened or–”

“Whoa!” Lance leaned back as Hunk’s gesture brought a  _ frying pan _ inches from bludgeoning him. “What the hell, Hunk, watch where you wave that thing!”

“ _ Sorry _ !” Hunk dropped the pan and Lance yelped and pulled his foot out of the way just in time. “ _ I’m so sorry, Lance _ ! I just wanted to make sure you were okay because you yelled and–why were you yelling?” He gasped and then asked, incredulously, “Why are you  _ awake _ ?!”

“I don’t always sleep all day,” Lance grumbled, running a hand through his hair. Ew. He needed a shower.

“Okay, but you don’t work today. Blue didn’t wake you up because she was with me in the kitchen. She’d better know better than to mess with the bacon on the cabinet–” a knowing glance was cast at Lance and he pretended not to see it. “–but anyway. Yeah. You never get up before ten on your days off but it’s like, eight. Not even eight, I don’t think?” He glanced at his watch. “Nope, not quite eight yet. So why–”

Lance grinned and Hunk cut off, eyeing him suspiciously even as Blue came into the room, pattering across the room to nudge Lance in the face. He laughed and reached up to pet her as Hunk raised an eyebrow.

“ _ Eurgh _ ,” a guttural groan sounded from the door. “You’re making that face–and all your usual noise–way too fuckin’ early.”

“Pidge, Lance is actually  _ awake _ ,” Hunk said, tone pleading for her to understand. “Before ten. On a day that he doesn’t work. There has to be something wrong with him. Buddy, you didn’t do anything weird in the park yesterday, right?” a big hand was suddenly feeling his forehead, and Lance leaned away with an amused huff as Hunk continued, “No drugs, right? No weird food from strangers? You’re not sick are you?! From the rain the other day?!”

“No, no, no!” Lance laughed, leaning away from Blue as she tried to lick his cheek. He scratched behind her ear and shook his head at his best friend. “No, buddy, I didn’t do anything weird!”

“You woke  _ up _ ,” Pidge pointed out, leaning casually against his bedroom door frame. “That’s weird. Who does that but  _ Hunk _ ? Especially this early.”

“True,” Lance acquiesced, laughing as he pushed himself to his feet. “But that’s not it. I just got a call from Allura.”

“Ooooh,” Hunk nodded in understanding. “She inviting you to a new opening again? As if you don’t already have the schedule memorized through the end of the year. Even though you’re crushing on Keith so hard, you still–”

“Cease and desist, my main man, before I decide I’m not gonna tell you what she wanted to talk about!” Lance said loudly, clapping his hands over his ears. “We’re not talking about my almost-not-crush on Keith, nuh-uh, no way, that was a conversation to be left in the past, and it is  _ done _ . Over,  _ asere.  _ Dead and forgotten. Capische?”

“Whatever you say,” Pidge flapped her fingers tiredly before rubbing at her eyes. “Now why were you making such a racket at this  _ ungodly _ hour?”

Lance grinned again and rocked on the balls of his feet, excitement mounting. “I got a call from Allura!”

“You said that already.”

“Yeah, but I didn’t say that she was inviting me to  _ Juniberries _ –”

Pidge groaned and Hunk sighed. “I did, though. Didn’t I, Pidge? Didn’t I just say a minute ago that she probably invited him to another opening–”

“–yeah, you did. I need coffee if you’re gonna keep me from  _ strangling _ him for waking me up over that–”

Scrambling, Lance spat out the rest quickly, “– _ to talk about having a show at the end of May _ !”

“Yeah, I’ll make you the coffee,” Hunk started to say, but as he reached the door and Lance finished blurting his news, he froze. Lance could tell that the big guy and the petite woman shared a startled glance before they both turned their attention back to him. Pidge stood away from the door frame, arms dangling limply at her sides, and Hunk turned back around, blinking in surprise.

“Wait, Lance,  _ what _ ?”

“Allura,” he said, very deliberately as he tried to bite back the excitement, “called me to see if I could come out to  _ Juniberries _ at five today. She wants to meet with me and another artist to talk about doing a joint show between two different art styles, and she picked  _ me _ as one of them.”

“You’re fucking with us,” Pidge deadpanned, one eyebrow lost in her untamed fringe. A challenge.

Lance reached for the cell phone haphazardly placed at the edge of his bed and unlocked it before turning it around to show the  _ Recent Calls _ screen.

“I don’t know, Pidge,” Hunk’s voice was starting to have that same touch of excitement that Lance felt. “Allura really  _ did _ call him, and Lance has been dreaming about a show at  _ Juniberries _ for literal years. I don’t think he’d fib about something this big. I can’t believe it, buddy. You’re finally gonna get your show! I mean, you’re sharing with someone, but you’re still getting one!”

“ _ I know _ !” Lance squeaked. Pidge snorted at the sound, but stepped over to where Hunk had already wrapped his large arms around Lance in a bear hug and slipped in with a light squeeze of her own. They swayed in the middle of his bedroom for a few moments before the genius wriggled out and dismissed herself to make coffee.

“Nice one, Lance,” she called as she slipped from the room.

“Thanks, my dear little Pidgeon!” he called back as he and Hunk separated. His face was still split in a wide smile, and Hunk grinned down at him.

“That’s awesome, Lance. But...you should really start on laundry before you go or you won’t have anything presentable to wear. I think all you have left are those booty shorts that Pidge gave you as a gag gift in high school and your  _ Keep Calm and Fanboy On _ shirt, and somehow I don’t think that’s going to impress Allura. Or your potential gallery partner.”

Lance glanced at his closet, where only a few lonely articles of clothing were left hanging, and then to the dresser, where most of his drawers were partially out and mostly empty, and then turned back to Hunk and asked, suspiciously, “How do you know what clothes I have left?”

“I was just assuming because those are the ones still sitting on top of the dryer from the last time you did laundry.”

With a groan, Lance tossed his arm around Hunk’s shoulder. “Why you gotta do this to me, Hunk?” he prodded, lightly elbowing his friend in the side. “I thought you were turning into some creepy stalker or something. Don’t scare me like that.”

“We  _ live _ together,” Pidge’s voice came from the hall. Sometimes Lance swore she had superhuman hearing. She rounded the corner, somehow already holding a steaming cup of coffee, and continued speaking. “It’s kind of hard not to know things about you when you leave them all over the house. Speaking of, please take your underwear off the lamp in the corner of the living room. I know they’re clean and no one uses that lamp, but they’ve been there for two months and Mom gives them that look every time she visits.”

“Oooh, yeah!” Hunk nodded, suppressing a laugh. “That Mom look. The one that says  _ I can’t believe you’re living like this _ , even though there’s nothing that’s dangerous to our health laying around. Remember when  _ Mamá  _ visited and cuffed Lance ‘round the ears for the state of his room?”

“Oh, yeah, his own mother’s worse than mine when it comes to cleanliness in this place,” Pidge agreed, snorting.

“Don’t remind me,” Lance groaned, flapping his hand dismissively. “ _ ‘Lancecito, how dare you! I thought I raised you better than this! _ ’ Trust me, I’ve heard the ‘ _ a clean home is a happy home _ ’ speech more times than I can count.”

“Please, Lance, you heard it more times than you could count before you even moved out, and you hardly learned your lesson,” Hunk teased.

“ _ Mamá  _ still regrets that she was never able to drill that particular rule into my head,” he acquiesced. “I was the best of my siblings at washing dishes but keeping everything else tidy was way too much work, and my little bro was always a neat freak anyway, so I could just leave it to him, except for when it came to my room.”

Pidge opened her mouth, probably to quip back, but Blue whined from behind her, where the Aussie had slipped around them all and wandered out of the room.

“Aw, what is it, girl?” Lance immediately turned his attention to her. “ _ Mi amorcita _ , do you have to go outside?”

She whined again.

“Then we’ll continue this conversation later,” Lance thumped Hunk on the back, glancing around his room for some flip-flops or something so he could take Blue out. “ _ Much _ later, or perhaps never. Never sounds good, actually, so let’s talk about something else when me and my beautiful girl get back in the house, alright?”

With a grin, he ruffled Pidge’s hair as she stepped out of his way, forcing a disgruntled protest from the petite woman. He ushered Blue to the door where he could grab her leash from the nearby hook, and then slipped out into the surprisingly chilly morning, whistling.

“It’s gonna be a good day, Blue,” he grinned as she frolicked in front of him, lightly tugging him along.

She barked, and he took it as agreement.

 

“What if I trip in front of the other guy?” Lance whined, carefully styling his hair in the bathroom mirror as Hunk sighed and leaned against the doorway. “I have to establish my dominance early in our partnership, bro! What happens if I fuck up? What if he, God forbid,  _ looks nicer than I do _ ?”

“Lance, you spent three hours picking what outfit to wear. I’m sure you’ll be fine,” the big guy soothed, glancing at his watch, “But if you show up late, I don’t think even being hand-picked is gonna save you from a scolding. And Allura is a champion at scolding. Remember when she chewed out that famous artist for sticking her nose up at a fellow exhibitor’s work? Man, that was good. So imagine showing up late,  _ especially _ after she hand-picked you. Actually, being chosen specifically might make it worse if you show up late, so you’d better get going stat, Lance, because it’s already four-forty–”

“It’s  _ what?! _ ” Lance shrieked, leaping away from the mirror and smoothing down the blue button-up he’d washed and donned. “ _ Asere _ , why didn’t you tell me?! I still need to put my shoes on and get there, and the bus ride is ten minutes on a good day, and _ Allura’s gonna kill _ me if I’m late!  _ Por dios! _ ”

He darted from the bathroom, ducking underneath Hunk’s arm, and prayed that his hair was styled enough as he slid to a stumbling halt in front of the door. Blue came up to him excitedly, wagging her tail, and he had to lightly nudge her away. He fumbled with his nicer shoes, hopping on one foot with a hand against the door to get the first shoe one.

Blue nosed against his leg again, nearly knocking him off balance.

“No, no, no, not now, girl,” he shooed her away again to put on his other shoe. “I have to go and I can’t take you with me this time, I’m sorry! Maybe if you ask Uncle Hunk, he’ll take out out for a few minutes, huh? You have to ask him nicely, though.”

Hunk snorted as Lance slid his arms into his charcoal grey blazer. “Yeah, yeah, I’ll do it in a little bit,” he agreed.

With his hand on the doorknob, Lance beamed, wiggling his feet a little to make sure his shoes were on all the way. “I knew I could count on you, buddy,” he grinned. “Now I gotta go or I will be super late and–”

He broke off when Hunk shoved something, gently, into his chest.

“–my portfolio!  _ Comepinga _ , I can’t believe I almost forgot it! I knew you were the best bro I’ve ever had, Hunk!” Lance draped himself over the bigger guy, giving him a squeeze. “You’re too good for me. Whatever did I do to deserve you?”

“Cease your dramatics and leave, nerd,” a voice came from outside the open door. Pidge was standing there, already back from classes, with her bag slung haphazardly over one shoulder and eyes flitting across the screen of the tablet in her hands. “You’re going to be late for your meeting with Allura and whoever else.”

“You’re right,  _ Pidgesita _ !” Lance nearly yelped, readjusting his grip on the portfolio. “Thanks so much for remembering my portfolio, Hunk! I’ll talk to you guys later!”

Without waiting for a response, Lance stooped to give Blue a quick kiss on her forehead and a scratch behind her ear and then turned in one fluid motion to bound down the three steps of their front porch. With a few long strides, he was on the sidewalk and booking it to the bus stop, praying that today was the day that a bus came by at 4:45. It would get him to the gallery almost on time. Maybe on time, if he was lucky.

“Please,” Lance muttered under his breath, rounding the corner at a jog and staring imploringly at the bus stop. And then he cursed and broke into a sprint as he saw the last person climb on bus seven, the one that would take him to the street that  _ Juniberries _ was on. He shouted, “Hold the door!” before they closed and miraculously, they reopened for him. 

“Cutting it close, eh?” the familiar bus driver, Mary, grinned at him. “C’mon, Lance, get on.”

He grinned, nodding and swiping his city transit card before sidling a few rows back to his favorite seat, hefting the leather portfolio into his lap. Mary closed the doors and was already moving before he could settle in, and Lance checked his phone. 

_ 4:42 _ .

Maybe he could still make it on time.

He pulled out the headphones he’d jammed into his pocket and plugged them in, pulling up his commute playlist. His knee was bouncing up and down, and it was all Lance could do to keep from nervously drumming his fingers. The only thing that had kept him sane throughout most of the day was the fact that Hunk had no other obligations and had been able to stay home and keep him grounded and on task with his laundry, but now that his rock was gone, the anxiety crept in.

What if Allura changed her mind? What if this potential gallery mate didn’t like him? What if the other guy–or girl–was  _ better _ than he was and looked down on him?

And now his fingers were drumming nervously atop the leather bound portfolio.

Showing up even a minute late would probably make his gallery partner turn up his or her nose. They’d probably judge him for not wearing nicer shoes than his Converse, but aside from super shiny black dress shoes that pinched his toes, those canvas shoes were the best he had. Allura would probably decide on someone else when she saw that his portfolio only had five or six more paintings than last time she’d seen it. Coran–or Shiro–would pull her aside to advise her against using his pieces for the show, even if Coran had been the one to recommend him, like Lance half suspected. Coran, Coran, the gorgeous man.

His fingers drummed again and his eyes flicked to the time. 

_ 4:48 _ .

_ Stop thinking of the what ifs _ , he told himself, but the next thought through his head was  _ what if the other artist is already there and judging me because I’m not? _

The music pulsing in his ears–some Disney soundtracks he forgot he had–only provided temporary distractions from the anxiety crawling up from the pit of his stomach, making a burrow in the hollow of his chest, closing his throat with the terror of what might be. Even the soft crooning of Zachary Levi and Mandy Moore couldn’t quell the rising knot of terror.

What if. What if.  _ What if _ .

_ 4:52 _ .

“Deep breaths,” he murmured to himself, even though he had music playing in his ears. He closed his eyes and counted as he breathed in, but it didn’t slow the racing of his heartbeat, so after a few breaths he sighed and opened them again. With shaking fingers, he instead opened the portfolio in front of him and told himself, “Look at your work. Allura’s seen it. She knows what you can do, and she picked you because of it.  _ Dale, _ Lance! You can do it!”

He flipped to a draft of his favorite spot at the creek, next to a picture of the larger piece he was working on. He was sure it would be done in time for the show, and Allura would love it. It was the perfect embodiment of everything she'd ever told him she loved about his work.

“Right,” he agreed with himself. “They  _ chose _ me. They wouldn't have picked me if they didn't want me.”

He flipped the page to his carefully photographed painting of Varadero and smiled. Keith had remembered this one.

His phone buzzed in his hand and the music in his ears paused briefly. Lance navigated to the text message and found himself beaming at Hunk's message.

_ You got this, buddy. They picked you for a reason!!! _

Lance responded with a blue heart, smiling, and glanced at the time again– _ 4:55 _ –before looking out the window. And, with some surprise, he realized he was just moments away from his stop. One more stoplight and a left and he was there.

He was going to make it on time.

His phone buzzed again and he glanced back down, clicking on the notification at the top of his screen.

_ Knock ‘em #dead _ .

Lance snorted at Pidge’s message, but it kept the smile on his face. He took another calming breath and looked down at the next few pages in his portfolio. Internally, he acknowledged that his brushwork had gotten better, even over the last few months. 

Even through his headphones, he heard the squeaking wheels of the city bus as it slowed, and then he felt himself leaning as they turned the corner. Lance glanced up again, and with one more shuddering breath, he pulled his headphones out, turned off his music, closed his portfolio, and breathed out. The bus slowed even more until finally it came to a complete halt, and Lance stood from his seat, shoving his phone in his pocket and tucking his portfolio under his arm, and then he made his way towards the front of the bus.

His heart was still racing, his nerves still pounding against his resolve, but Lance bade the bus driver farewell and bounded down the stairs. The lovely art nouveau sign of  _ Juniberries _ was hanging just across the street and a few buildings down. As the other passengers were disembarking, Lance looked both ways and jogged across the street, in front of the bus.

_ It’s only jaywalking if you get caught _ , he told himself.

Lance did his best to keep his friends’ words of encouragement at the front of his mind, forcing the doubts back as far as he could manage. And then, with a nod to himself, Lance squared his shoulders and pushed through the doors to enter  _ Juniberries _ .

“Never fear, Princess!” he announced, with extra pizzazz, when he spotted the tall woman standing near the reception desk, her long white hair piled atop her head in a stylish updo. Allura turned to face him, and he added a bow, an extra flourish of his hand, and continued, “Your watercolor prince has arrived!”

“Lance,” she sighed, straightening, “I told you not to call me that.”

“I can’t help it!” Lance grinned at her, stepping up beside her and placing his portfolio atop the desk. “I call ‘em like I see ‘em, you know. And here, my portfolio. You asked for it, right?”

“Yes, yes, so we can discuss placements if both of you agree to work together,” Allura ignored Lance’s playful flirtations and flipped open his portfolio, idly turning pages. She paused and noted on one page, a loose watercolor sketch of Pidge sleeping on the couch that the genius didn’t know he had, “This is new.”

“I told you I had stuff to add,” Lance retorted, leaning back on his elbows at the high desk as the gallery’s owner looked through his work.

Allura hummed in agreement, and he heard her flip a few more pages. “You’ve improved,” she mused aloud. Another page turned, and she asked, “Is this a work in progress?”

Lance glanced over his shoulder and noted the creek.

“Yup,” he popped the ‘p,’ spinning around to look at the page with her. “I’m hoping to have it done by the end of April, as long as the weather stays nice. I have all the basics down but I don’t want to miss anything.”

She nodded, running her slim fingers across the plastic-covered photograph, tracing the gentle bend of the creek and the majestic arching of boughs over the water. Lance felt warmth bubbling up in his chest– _ she likes them _ , he acknowledged, even though he already knew she wouldn’t have asked him to come if she didn’t believe in his work. Her voice was soft but warm when she looked back up at him and spoke as earnestly as Lance had ever seen, “I look forward to seeing it done, Lance.”

His heart skipped a beat, or maybe two. He wasn’t quite sure. 

As he opened his mouth to speak, which was probably a horrible mistake that would have ended in an equally ill-fated pick-up line, he felt a soft rush of air against his back.

“Sorry I’m late, Allura, the damn bus got caught at every fucking light–”

“Language–”

“–and then the driver had an argument with some tourists who missed their stop and wanted to turn around–”

Lance nearly stopped listening as the words tumbled out of the other artist’s mouth as he ran a distracted hand through his inky fringe. In the middle of his rant, he readjusted his black-rimmed glasses and finally looked up, words faltering when he locked eyes with Lance. The portfolio in his hand, larger than Lance’s, thudded to the marble flooring, flopping over to balance against its owner’s leg.

“ _ Lance _ ?”

“ _ Keith _ ?”

They spoke in unison, and Allura startled a bit, looking back and forth between the two with a small, confused crease between her brows. And then she rolled her shoulders, bringing her hands together and announcing, “If you two already know each other, that should make things go more smoothly. Lance McClain, this is Keith Kogane, Keith this is Lance, and all that. Now please kindly follow me to the conference room to discuss working together, unless either of you have any complaints?”

As Lance eyed Keith up and down, taking in the low ponytail, the slightly wrinkled black slacks, and the white button up mostly covered by his crimson cardigan, he decided he had absolutely no problem. None whatsoever. Even if it was half-assed business casual, even sloppier than Lance’s own, Keith still cleaned up nice and he was finding it harder and harder to deny the slight– _ slight _ !–attraction.

_ Shit _ .

“Yeah, no, it’s all good. Lead the way, ‘Lura,” Lance waved, flipping his portfolio closed and picking it back up. “Right, Keithy-boy?”

Keith sighed and leaned to pick up his portfolio, rolling his eyes as what Lance dared believe to be a  _ fond _ grin spread across his features. “Keep calling me that and we might have problems,” his voice lifted teasingly, and Lance laughed.

Allura, watching the two, quirked a delicate brow before turning and striding through the doorway behind her into the main gallery, making a beeline for the door leading to the administrative offices and rooms in the back. Lance took the walk to peek at the current gallery display, which he’d already seen once, on opening night, before turning his attention back to Keith.

“I didn’t know she called you,” he said, nudging the other artist lightly.

“Yeah, well, I didn’t know she’d called you, either,” Keith returned, nudging back with a little more force.

“Well, lucky she  _ did _ call me,” Lance snorted, puffing out his chest dramatically. “Obviously, I’m the one that’s going to save the show. After all, I’m not going to let you beat me. Not anymore, my mulleted  _ amigo _ . Now we’re  _ rivals _ ! Proper rivals!”

“Aren’t we supposed to be partners for this?” Keith arched a brow. A challenge. “I mean, she did tell you it was a joint exhibition, didn’t she?”

“Details, schmetails,” Lance waved his hand dismissively. “It’s still a competition between us, Keith, even if we’re working together. Like...I bet more people say that my work is  _ soft _ .”

“I bet more people say my colors are  _ rich _ , then,” Keith retorted, glancing around them. 

“I beg to differ, Mr. Mulletman! My colors may be lighter but that doesn’t mean they can’t be rich too!” Lance said defensively, but then laughed. “But yeah. You got the idea. Everything’s a competition if we look at it the right way, and I’m determined not to be beaten by you again!”

“Does it have to be a competition?” Keith asked blankly as they stepped into the conference room, Allura watching them from the opposite side of the table. 

“Doesn’t it?” Lance blinked back, sitting his portfolio on the table.

“No?” the other artist said, questioningly. “Can’t it just be...a celebration of our differences?”

Lance had nothing to say to that. For a few moments he just stood there dumbly before he blinked and drew himself up to his full height, regarding Keith with a critical eye. Keith looked...earnest. He didn’t want it to be all about competing, then, and Lance couldn’t blame him. Always viewing things in terms of winning or losing, as he often couldn’t help doing himself, was exhausting.

But this way of thinking– _ Keith’s _ way of thinking–Lance liked that.

“A celebration of differences, huh?” he finally spoke as Keith hefted his portfolio onto the table. Lance paused for dramatic effect before he finally conceded, “I suppose that sounds reasonable enough.”

Keith’s knowing smirk sent a spark through Lance’s core, and he promptly turned his attention to Allura.

“If you’re done with your conversation, I’d like to discuss the possibility of the two of you showing your work in May, as Sendak,” she said the name with distaste, “very unceremoniously pulled himself out of our lineup with only a few months before the show. I had only just finished the newsletter and was preparing to send it off for printing when he announced his withdrawal.”

“Ugh, you should have told me it was Sendak!” Lance groaned. “He’s the worst!”

“Agreed,” Keith’s tone was dark, and it was obvious that he and Lance were probably referring to the same incident.

“‘Lura, didn’t you know he was the one that plagiarized Shiro’s super awesome ink painting?” Lance demanded, frowning. 

“Yes,” she replied stiffly, “which is why I told him when I allowed him the space that he had to provide credible pieces that he had done himself for the show, or I would urge Shiro to press charges on him.”

“Shiro’s too nice for his own good,” Keith grumbled.

Lance was about to remark– _ oh, you know Shiro, too _ ?–when Allura sighed.

“Yes, well, your brother won’t listen to reason. No matter how many times I’ve asked him why he wouldn’t press charges, he just smiles and says he doesn’t feel the need to.”

“Wait, wait,  _ wait _ . Hold the phone,” Lance flattened his palms on the table with perhaps more force than necessary. When Allura and Keith looked his way, Lance asked, incredulously, “Shiro’s your  _ brother _ ?  _ Shiro _ ? I’ve looked up to him since before I decided I wanted to be an artist and you’re telling me that you’re  _ related _ ?!”

“You didn’t know?”

Keith, bless him, looked thoroughly confused. He honestly thought that Lance had _known_ already, and couldn’t see why Lance was staring at him, flabbergasted. But even if Lance had known that his _hero_ and his _crush_ were brothers– _oh my god,_ _I just called Keith my crush–_ he would have probably still reacted the same. His mouth agape, Lance could only make a few unintelligible sounds before he gave up and flopped into one of the spinny chairs around the conference table.

Finally, just as he was about to compose himself enough to crack a joke, Allura cleared her throat and announced, “We’ll take that as a ‘no, Keith, I didn’t know’. Now, as I was  _ saying _ , I picked you two because I trust the two of you to be able to put together a gallery that will crush the show that Sendak pulled out to partake in.”

“Wait, he pulled out to do another show?” Lance spun the chair to face her, eyebrows shooting up. “Well, good fucking riddance.  _ Juniberries _ is too good for him!”

“Language,” Allura chided, though the spark in her eye told him she agreed. “And yes, Sendak pulled from our show to partake in his guild’s joint show. They call themselves the Galra, and they’re showing their work at their guildmaster’s gallery.”

“ _ The Empire _ ,” Keith growled, and at the venom in his tone, Lance’s eyes darted over to watch as the anger clouded the other artist’s features. “The one that Zarkon owns, right?”

“Yes.”

Leaning forward, Lance couldn’t help but prod, “Okay, I think I’m missing something. Who’s this Zarkon guy? And we’re talking about that big gallery like, ten blocks away, right? That’s  _ The Empire _ I know of, anyway.”

“Zarkon sponsored one of Keith’s first shows,” Allura said when Keith crossed his arms, posture rigid. “A joint show with Shiro, in fact, before Shiro started working for me. However, after all was said and done, he had sold one of Keith’s paintings and three of Shiro’s and refused to give them the eighty percent that was due to them. Instead, he gave them forty and cited apparent damages to his gallery as the reason for keeping the other forty percent.”

“Is that even  _ legal _ ?” Lance was aghast. “I mean, it can’t be!”

“Aside from his guild, Zarkon only shows–and sells–the work of people who can’t afford lawyers,” Keith’s tone was dark, and he lowered himself into the chair next to Lance’s. “Our show was right after...right after the accident. So our money was even tighter than when we’d signed up for the space, and we were more concerned with paying the hospital bills than with paying for a lawyer we already couldn’t afford.”

“Oh, that mother _ fucker _ –no, Allura, I won’t watch my language, it’s the  _ truth _ !” Lance glanced over at her and she closed her mouth, an amused grin pulling at the tight corners of her mouth. “Okay, so here’s the deal, then. Those assholes over at  _ The Empire _ aren’t gonna know what hit them, got it? Because we’re gonna take that opening weekend. If there are any headlines to be had, Keithy-poo, they’re  _ ours _ . Those Galra jerks are probably all a bunch of plagiarizers and we’re gonna teach them a good old fashioned lesson!”

“Precisely why I picked the two of you,” Allura’s voice was sharp, a no-nonsense tone. “The combination of your styles is striking. I noticed it when we your works were displayed together, when you placed first and second in that juried exhibition for new local artists. When Coran suggested that I ask you to headline in Sendak’s place, my only concern was that the two of you may not get along.”

“Pffft, what are you talking about? We’re best buds!” Lance leaned back in his chair. 

“What, because your dog decided she liked knocking me over a few weeks ago and we argued about it?” Keith’s tone was flat. “Or maybe because you’ve been giving me shitty nicknames and expecting me to respond.”

“No! It’s because we’re  _ partners _ , right?” Lance lightly shoved Keith’s shoulder. “C’mon, buddy, you said it yourself!”

“Because you were making it into a competition,  _ Lancey-poo _ .”

“Oh, ew, gross. That sounds so much worse than Keithy-poo, and you know it,” he wrinkled his nose at Keith’s triumphant smirk. “Bleh. Okay, but seriously, you’ve got nothing to worry about, Allura!”

She raised a skeptical brow. “That remains to be seen.”

Allura remained standing, reaching to both portfolios to flip them open as Lance spluttered indignantly. Keith snorted in amusement, probably at Lance’s expense, before Allura spoke again.

“First, I want to take a look at your pieces, and we’ll see if we can come up with an arrangement that would work for the main gallery space. I’ll need examples of two or three pieces that we will be showing for the newsletter and the advertisement for the opening. So, if you’re both prepared to work together for the next few months, let’s get to work.”

* * *

 

Keith watched the way Lance spoke, his animated movements accentuating the verbal descriptions he was giving. His blazer was discarded on the back of one of the chairs around the table and he’d pushed back the sleeves of his button up and discarded the tie he’d been wearing. And the suggestions he was spouting, they were good. He punctuated each mention of a piece with a wide gesture towards that piece, and described, with an enthusiasm that Keith admired in him, how those pieces would work side by side.

“See, with this one, I used a lot thicker watercolor and didn’t dilute it as much, so the color is a lot more vibrant, but  _ this _ one that Keith did is the opposite–he thinned the paints more than usual so it has an almost...lighter feel. So I think those contrasts…”

“...yes, Lance, I see what you mean…” Allura nodded, sliding the two photos next to each other on the east wall. “And this one is similar enough to the one on its other side…”

“Exactly!” Lance nodded enthusiastically.

When Allura turned to Keith, he nodded in agreement, and she smiled and turned back to the next few paintings as Lance mused over them.

If Keith was honest, most of the rough sketches of the room’s layout so far had been suggested by Lance. He had a pretty good eye, and when he was so cheerful, so excited about it, Keith almost couldn’t bring himself to contradict anything he said. When necessary, he’d intervened, and it had been almost easy to work with Lance and Allura to get this far when they were both so fired up about it.

He was especially proud of the placement of Lance’s Varadero Beach painting. The spot had been picked by Keith and supported immediately by Allura. It was a fantastic location, and when Lance’s face lit up, Keith decided that suggesting his favorite spot for that particular painting was well worth it. Not that he’d  _ ever _ tell Lance that his Varadero painting was going to be in his own favorite spot, because that would put ideas in his head that Keith would rather not think about.

After that success, though, Keith pressed his way into the planning until, without either artist noticing, Allura fell silent and watched, impressed, as they put together their show.

An hour passed, and the group were contemplating the final spot–the most prominent location in the entire show. It was a standalone, on the wall right as one entered the gallery proper, and it was the wall where information about the current art on exhibit would be displayed.

“If we had two pieces that were the same size,” Lance said slowly, “we could put on here and one here,” he sketched on a piece of scrap paper to demonstrate his idea, “and then we could put the information in the center, between them.”

“Yes, but they’d have to be pieces that complemented each other,” Allura mused, flipping through the portfolios in front of her, “and exceptionally well at that because they would be the face of your exhibit. You have a few that would work...but they’re not the same size, so it would throw off the aesthetic you’re looking for, Lance.”

The watercolor artist groaned, dragging a hand down his face with an exaggerated motion. 

“What if…” Keith started, and then stopped, shaking his head and lightly sketching something on his own piece of scrap. If he and Lance could learn from each other, even a little, maybe they could make new pieces to showcase how well they complement each other? 

_ How well our  _ work _ complements each other’s work, Keith _ , he had to amend silently.

“What if…?” Allura prompted after he’d fallen silent, and he started a little. Keith hadn’t realized he’d spoken out loud, and when he raised his eyes to see Allura’s blue ones peering intently in his direction, as well as a blue pair of another kind, he lowered his gaze again.

“...What if we did something together?” he shrugged his shoulders a little, not looking back at his companions. “We could learn from each other. Styles, medium, whatever. We could do a single piece or something with multiple pieces that combine our styles, and we could use that as the piece to introduce the show.”

Lance’s mouth slowly dropped open as he stared at Keith, almost incredulously. Allura’s brows rose, arching delicately, and Keith started to feel like he’d said something wrong. As the seconds seemed to drag, he cleared his throat awkwardly.

“W-well, it was just a suggestion,” he said stiffly, crossing his arms and turning his head away from those two blue gazes. He couldn’t sit for very long under their joint stares, after all. It was much too potent. Instead, he focused on trying to ignore the fact that he was more conscious of one of them in particular, and not the one belonging to the woman that was allowing them to use her gallery space.

“ _ Yes _ ,” after a long pause, the word finally escaped in a whisper that was almost a hiss, and Keith was forced to look up when he heard a chair skate backwards. Lance had surged to his feet and raised a fist in the air, a grin widening across his features. “Yes, yes,  _ yes _ ! C’mon, ‘Lura, you  _ have _ to let us do the triptych idea!” he bounced excitedly on the balls of his feet, turning to grasp Keith’s shoulder, shaking him a little. “That’s  _ brilliant _ , buddy! It’s the best way to show how our styles are different but also show how they complement each other!”

Keith blinked up at him, trying to reconcile the silent, almost brooding Lance from moments earlier to this Lance, beaming and positively brimming with exaltation. 

“We  _ have _ to,” he insisted, looking imploringly at Allura, hand tightening on Keith’s shoulder. 

“Well...I’m not opposed,” Allura spoke after a short pause, her eyes flicking between the two, “but you do realize that this means you have to agree on a subject and cooperate–”

“Of course, ‘Lura, that’s why it’s called a  _ collaboration _ ,” he snorted, waving his hand at her. “I love the idea, and Keith suggested it so he’s gotta be fine with it, right?”

Keith noticed the way Allura pursed her lips just slightly, and he recognized it as her thinking face. He watched her expression change, slowly, and found himself waiting for her answer. Lance’s enthusiasm made his own excitement grow, and he leaned forward in his seat.

“I  _ did _ suggest it,” Keith spoke up again, slowly. The warmth of Lance’s fingers through his shirt spurred him on, when otherwise he might have let her think it through on her own. “It might be a struggle to find out where our styles can meet in the middle, but isn’t that part of what you wanted to express with this show? The way our pieces can complement each other, despite the fact that we use a different medium?”

“I’m not opposed, gentlemen,” Allura repeated, “I’m just concerned that there may not be enough time for you to finish it. I think it sounds like a marvelous idea, but…”

“Indeed!” Keith nearly jumped at the voice behind him, and Lance let out an ungainly help as he spun to face the door. “I say let them give it a go! You never know what might happen, Allura. They could surprise us all!”

“Coran! Coran, you beautiful man!” Lance laughed, a trace of embarrassment high on his cheeks as he covered it with his bravado. “See, ‘Lura? Even my man Coran agrees with us!”

Keith watched her cast a look at him, and let his eyes trail to Coran. As usual, the boisterous older man just grinned. The way he could place absolute faith in people always caught Keith off guard, but it was the warmth and confidence in his chuckle that soothed him. If Coran believed they could pull it off, then Keith would, too. Somehow, Coran’s faith had that effect on people.

“They’re both talented lads, Allura. You wouldn’t have picked them if you didn’t think so,” he said sagely, sweeping in to place a hand on each younger man’s shoulder. “They’ll run into a few snags in the process, I’m sure, but I know they can do it.”

Clearing his throat a little, Keith added, “We want to try it, Allura.”

She sighed, but he could see the grin playing at the corner of her lips, along with a mischievous twinkle in her eyes. And it struck him then–had Allura been  _ planning _ that from the beginning? To get them to collaborate on a piece for the show?

As the idea sank in, he narrowed his eyes at her, and Allura just blinked innocently and beamed even as Lance whooped and started dancing around the table toward her. He lifted her hand and placed a sloppy kiss across her knuckles and then bounded his way back towards Keith. And then Keith was being pulled to his feet, wrapped in a tight hug he hadn’t been expecting. 

Tentatively, he reached his hands up to return the embrace, and heard Lance huff out a light laugh next to his ear and felt him squeeze tighter.

“Let’s knock ‘em dead, McMullet,” he murmured for only Keith to hear, and Keith snorted and pushed the watercolor painter away.

“Didn’t need you to say it,  _ partner _ ,” Keith stressed, and Lance squeaked at the word, bouncing on the balls of his feet with all his suppressed energy. His lips were wide in a grin, and Keith wondered how many people had fallen for that sunshine smile.

_ No,  _ he caught himself, forcing his eyes to trail back to Allura. A mistake, because amusement and a knowing smirk appeared there. He glared.

“Now that we’ve decided on that,” Allura raised her voice to be heard, a teasing lilt in her tone definitely directed at Keith, “we should discuss a few more things…”

* * *

 

Keith stared up at the building in front of him, and then turned to Shiro, frowning.

“Don’t give me that look,” Shiro raised his hands in front of him with a light chuckle. “Allura and Coran insisted we do something to celebrate your first split show with someone who isn’t  _ me _ , and you know how they are.”

“But a  _ bar _ ?” Keith looked back up at  _ Marmora _ , watching the flashing purple lights as they danced around the edges of the sign. “We could have bought some whiskey and had drinks at our apartment, Shiro. We didn’t need to go  _ out _ .”

“Well, we’re already here, and Ulaz has been asking us to visit for a while now. Don’t you think it’s about time we took him up on that?” Shiro grinned, nudging Keith lightly in the side. 

“Cheeky,” Keith grumbled, walking forward towards the bar.

With a laugh, Shiro called out, “Don’t pretend you’re not happy it’s this bar and not somewhere else! Not to mention you have to take down your show after tonight anyway, right?”

Keith remained silent, and Shiro took that as his win. He was right, after all.  _ Marmora _ was a much better bar than  _ Weblum _ , and Keith enjoyed talking with Ulaz and making sly comments about the drunkards stumbling and staggering around before Thace kindly ejected them from the bar. And his brother  _ was _ right...it was Friday, and Keith needed to take the show down after the bar closed or before it opened on Saturday. 

Shiro passed him, clapping a hand on Keith’s shoulder as he stepped up to the doors and provided his ID.

With a sigh, Keith followed suit.

“We can just have a couple drinks and leave, right?” he finally asked, returning his wallet to his pocket as he followed Shiro in. “We don’t have to stay out all night, do we?”

“I’m not Matt,” the older man teased, looking back at him.

Keith remembered the way Shiro had staggered home at four in the morning the day after his twenty-first birthday. It was a bar crawl with his college buddies, painstakingly planned and executed by his best friend, Matt Holt. Keith couldn’t even imagine taking in all the alcohol that was in Matt’s energetic retellings of the night, and involuntarily shuddered at the idea.

“Thank God,” he muttered. “The world couldn’t take more than one.”

“Let’s go to the bar and grab a stool before–”

“–eith?!”

Shiro paused and looked curiously toward the voice. It sounded suspiciously like–

“It  _ is _ you!” 

Lance emerged from the crowd, a rosy flush across his cheeks as he tossed an arm around Keith’s shoulders.

“What are you doing here?” Keith asked, a little more violently than intended.

“You told me yourself that you had a show up in this place,” Lance leaned a little too much of his weight against Keith’s shoulder, but he held his tongue. “You  _ invited  _ me to come with, but then you never said anything else, and I haven’t seen you since  _ Juniberries _ so I decided to come out anyway! ‘Sides, it’s a good night to celebrate, right?”

“Shiro!” another voice piped up, and two more people followed Lance out of the small crowd. “Keith! ‘Sup? We tried to keep Lance in check, but you know how that goes,” Pidge shrugged, slinking forward. “What are you guys doing here?”

“Allura and Coran insisted that Keith celebrate somehow,” Keith overheard Shiro, but he was a little more focused on how Hunk was trying to coax Lance to take more of his own weight back.

“C’mon, buddy,” the big guy rested a gentle hand on Lance's shoulder. “Keith is here to have fun, not drag you around.”

“ _ Huuunk _ ,” Lance whined, dragging Keith closer against his side. Keith smelled something fruity on his breath with this new proximity, but still remained silent. “The night is young, my man, and Keithy-poo needs to get started if he's ever gonna catch up to me!”

“This isn't a race, Lance,” Keith deadpanned, scowling lightly. 

“ _ Everything _ is a race, Keithy-poo. A  _ challenge _ . And I,” Lance swept his hand to his chest in a rather flamboyant gesture, splaying his fingers out, “am officially challenging you to a game of darts.”

“Here he goes again,” Pidge groaned, rolling her eyes. “Don’t let him fool you, Keith. He’s already lost four games.”

“Pidge!  _ Pidgisita _ , you’re not supposed to tell him that!” Lance sagged heavily against Keith’s shoulder, and to steady himself and Lance, Keith found himself wrapping his arm around the other painter. 

“He’s had a lot more to drink than he’s letting on,” Shiro’s amused tone remarked, but the traces of his concerned brotherly affection padded the words, and Keith rolled his eyes.

“He’s fine,” Pidge waved her hand as Lance protested Shiro’s words.

“Lance sometimes acts a little more drunk than he is,” Hunk added, patting his best friend on the back. “It’s some subconscious thing about fitting in, I think, but I’m not one hundred percent sure about it all. I probably never gave enough of my attention to our psychology classes.” Hunk shrugged a little sheepishly.

“Hunk, I love you,” Lance pointed an accusing finger at his friend to accentuate his next words, “but could you hush? And you too, gremlin. I’m trying to challenge Keith here, and you’re kind of ruining my flawless image!”

“You didn’t need their help,” Keith remarked blandly, though his lips quirked up in amusement as his new business partner gasped dramatically. “Now, don’t you have a game of darts to lose?”

“My honor is on the line!” Lance declared loudly, tugging Keith towards the part of the bar with darts and the billiards tables. Keith glanced at the wall opposite the dart boards, where a few of his older, worse pieces were hanging, and noted with satisfaction that no one had decided to use them as dartboards. Just as Thace and Ulaz had assured him.

“What honor?” he heard Pidge mumble behind them, and caught Lance flipping her off over his shoulder.

From that encounter, and through a few games of darts, which Lance lost, Keith lost track of how many drinks Lance had downed, though he himself had only had two beers. Shiro had been chatting idly with Ulaz, Pidge, and Hunk at the bar and when asked, just grinned and said he looked like he was having fun with Lance, complete with a knowing smirk and a frustrated sigh on Keith’s end. Eventually, Pidge had trailed over to tease Lance about his not quite terrible dart skills and they’d switched from dartboards to billiards tables.

After the many colored concoctions Lance had gone through, Keith wasn’t really sure how things had ended up as they were.

One minute, a tipsy Lance was teasing him as they played pool and the next, Lance was suddenly knocking in every single shot with ease. Whereas Lance’s accuracy with darts was nothing to be laughed at, even if he  _ had _ lost every match, his abilities at a billiards table pretty much stole Keith’s breath away.

And then Pidge started calling angles out, dryly, from her seat at the bar, and it increased Lance’s skills to  _ perfection _ .

It was then that some other patrons came up and challenged their ability and scoffed at Pidge’s calls. Obviously they thought it was some sort of ploy or some kind of lucky guessing on Pidge’s part, but Lance would have none of it.

Therefore he and Lance ended up facing off against the two other guys in an intense game of pool. The break, courtesy of Keith, had scattered the balls across the green surface and earned them ownership of the stripes. Pidge had started calling shots after that, and when Keith messed up on the second shot and the other team stepped up, he sat back to watch.

The other guy missed on Pidge’s first call, and Lance urged the second guy to go first. He followed Pidge’s advice a little more closely, but he missed the second shot, same as Keith. And then there was Lance. He’d stepped forward, leaned over, and had knocked two more in before Keith could really think on it. Lance was lining up his next shot and Keith finally stopped to wonder how the hell they'd ended up ‘playing for Pidge's honor’ when the girl in question was obviously capable of defending her own. Her particular talent, the one in question, was instantly calculating the perfect trajectory for some crazy shots. It was uncanny. 

But sometimes she would slip up, her execution not quite on par with her intelligence, and that was where  _ Lance _ , of all people, excelled.

Pidge sat on a barstool nearby, calling the shots for both teams to even the odds. She would describe an angle, a trick shot, and allow the players to try and follow her instructions. The other team was terrible at it, but even with a cheery red making his cheeks glow, and the occasional slur in his speech, the self-proclaimed  _ Sharpshooter _ had yet to miss a shot. The other team, Keith mused, probably wouldn’t get to try again.

That said, Keith could only watch as the gangly artist sunk the eight ball, marking their victory.

Antok, one of the bar’s regulars and a part-time bartender, laughed and gave Lance a hearty clap on the back. He grinned as he allowed his own pool cue to roll onto the table.

“That’s it! We accept defeat,” he announced, putting both hands up in surrender. “You were right. This kid’s a fuckin’ genius or something, I swear!”

“Hear that,  _ Pidgisita _ ?!” Lance spun to look at her, popping his hip and resting his hand there defiantly. “I have successfully defended your honor, you tiny gremlin genius! Oh, and Keith helped, too.”

Keith rolled his eyes and opened his mouth to argue, but then decided against it. Lance was definitely showing the signs of inebriation now, if the slight stumble in his step as he went to sit beside Pidge was anything to go by. But his grin was still as bright as ever, and Keith couldn’t help smiling softly to himself when he saw the way Lance draped his arm around Pidge’s shoulders, leaning over and teasing her.

“Now if you could just keep your big mouth from spouting off every rude comment your ginormous brain cooks up, we wouldn’t have to dance this dance so often, my tiny friend.”

Pidge rolled her eyes and Lance let out an ungainly yelp. Keith saw the smaller woman retracting her elbow and snorted to himself, stepping up to the stool on her other side. He ordered his third beer from a Ulaz, who winked at him and cast a covert glance. Quirking an eyebrow, Keith followed his gaze–just over Pidge’s head, where Lance sat.

Wrinkling his nose, Keith turned a halfhearted glare on the bartender.

“Call ‘em like I see ‘em,” Ulaz shrugged, sliding the bottle he’d just uncapped across the bar to Keith.

Keith couldn’t, in good conscience, deny his bartender friend’s assumption because he couldn’t ignore the vague sense of attraction he felt for his fellow artist. And the bubble of warmth at Lance’s presence only grew with each encounter. It was a sobering thought, considering they’d only known each other for approximately a week and a half and the first few encounters included Keith falling to the ground.

Instead of trying to protest, he groaned and took a large swig from the bottle in his hand.

Ulaz laughed.

* * *

 

“Bar’s closing, Lance,” Pidge sighed, tugging on Lance’s blue button-up, which was tied haphazardly around his waist to show off his grey and blue baseball tee. “Tell Keith you’ll see him later so we can get your drunk ass home.”

“But I was ‘spose to help take down the show,” Lance blinked slowly, turning to face Pidge. She was a little pink in the cheeks, probably from the two drinks Lance had bought her. “Amirite, Keithy-poo?”

“You’re too drunk to touch my art,” Keith kept his tone as flat as possible, though his lips quirked up in amusement as Lance pouted.

A grown man shouldn’t be that fucking  _ adorable _ . It just wasn’t  _ fair _ .

“It’s okay, Lance,” Shiro’s voice was warm as he placed a hand on Lance’s shoulder. “Keith wasn’t expecting me to be with him, so he’s still got the extra help. You just go home, have some water, and sleep it off, ‘kay?”

“C’mon, Shiro, ‘m not drunk,” Lance mumbled childishly, crossing his arms. “I just had a  _ couple. _ ”

“A couple  _ pitchers _ ,” Pidge snorted under her breath, running a finger down the handle of the nearest margarita pitcher to prove her point. Ulaz hadn’t yet cleaned their small portion of the bar.

“C’mon, buddy,” Hunk interjected, voice warm and soothing as he tried to reason with his best friend. “It’s late, and even if you’re not drunk–” Pidge made some noises in the background, and Keith snorted in agreement, “–you’ve still had a little too much to mess with Keith’s art. You know how it is–remember when you threatened to gouge your little sister’s eye out when she got too close to you with her milkshake when you were working on your Varadero painting? Your mom started yelling at you. Let me tell you, I’ve never seen Marisol that angry, and I’m pretty sure she would have you wash your mouth out with soap if you used even half of the language she did.”

Lance flinched, and if Keith were to hazard a guess he would attribute the reaction to memories of the incident. But with that, his shoulders sagged, and he let out a long, exaggerated sigh. Hunk’s eyes glittered with his triumph as he watched his friend. 

“ _ Fine _ ,” Lance’s tone was all exasperation. He patted Shiro on the shoulder and then pulled Keith into a hug that was all elbows and Lance’s weight sagging against him for a few moments. A step back was required to help steady them, but Keith didn’t protest. “If you can’t get all of it down, don’t blame me for skipping out on you because I  _ tried _ to stay!”

“Yes, you tried,” Keith laughed a little. “I won’t hold it against you.”

With one last sigh, the scent of strawberries and alcohol lingering in the air, Lance released Keith. His hand still on Keith’s shoulder, he leaned forward for a moment, and Keith felt a soft breath, and then the press of lips against his forehead. He froze in place as Lance stepped back, grinning widely.

“Hasta la later, Keithy-poo,” he said, turning and nearly stumbling right into Hunk. Hunk, coming back to his senses after the brief shock, wrapped Lance’s arm around his shoulders and offered his own farewells.

Pidge stared between Keith and Lance for a few moments before snickering, and then chuckling, and then laughing a deep, full laugh at Keith’s expense.

“Holy  _ crow _ , Keith, you should see your face!” she spluttered, beaming. Keith jumped a little, feeling a flush creeping from the back of his neck and across his face. Everything was on fire, and the drunk being helped out the door was  _ entirely _ to blame. “Oh, shit, this is gold. I can’t  _ wait _ to tell Lance when he’s forgotten about this in the morning!”

With that, Pidge left the bar, howling.

“Dammit,” Keith groaned, dragging his sleeve angrily across his cheeks in a vain attempt to make the embarrassment cease. And when he saw movement out of the corner of his eye, he snapped, “I don’t want to hear  _ anything _ from the two of you!”

Shiro and Ulaz just grinned, though Shiro’s was more sheepish.

With another grumble, turning his back on the duo, he declared, “Let’s take down my show and get out of here.”

Shiro stepped forward to help, and thankfully said nothing.

No matter what Keith did, though, his mind kept trailing back to the place on his forehead that tingled with the memory of Lance’s kiss.

_ Dammit _ , Keith thought to himself.  _ He’s too much. _


	4. Chapter 4

When Lance had decided that a celebration was in order, he hadn’t really anticipated seeing Keith there, despite the fact that he’d chosen  _ Marmora _ just so he could see Keith’s work on the walls. But when he saw Keith, he did, in fact, remember that the exhibition had to be taken down. And another instantaneous reaction to seeing Keith enter with  _ Shiro _ was the burning desire just to interact with him.

If he’d been asked, Lance probably would have insisted that their joint venture meant they needed to hang out more or some other twisted, tipsy logic. The truth was probably even more of a jumbled mess–something to do with a little bit of attraction he had been desperately trying to quash coupled with a bit of awe at the fact that he now knew the oil painter he’d considered a rival from a distance for so many months now.

Plus, Keith’s surprised face as Lance had pushed through the crowd toward him had been a bonus. A totally  _ not _ adorable bonus.

Despite feeling a little guilty that he kind of forced his own personal celebration onto Keith, Lance didn’t regret anything. From what he could recall, they’d made a damn good duo when they were at the pool table with Pidge calling the angles from the sidelines. Darts was another story, and he lamented that he couldn’t recall winning a single game against  _ anyone _ , let alone Keith. But the way that Keith’s eyes had shined in the bar’s dim lighting was something that Lance just couldn’t shake.

_ Comepinga! No, Lance, stop! _

Lance reined his thoughts in and sat up, yawning. His head felt a little like it was filled with cotton and gave a little bit of a throb when he moved, and his tongue felt like a wet sock that had been shoved into his mouth, but he didn’t feel nauseous. He took that as a good sign and silently prayed it wouldn’t change as he forced himself to his feet.

A muffled sound drew his attention to the pet bed next to his own, where Blue’s leg was twitching in her sleep, and he grinned and knelt to give her a gentle scratch behind the ears. She tossed her head in her sleep, huffing through her nose in that way dogs do, and then settled into sleep again. He grinned and stood again, watching his favorite girl sleep before turning away.

Maybe, Lance told himself, getting up and moving around would make him come to his senses, because Keith’s eyes definitely weren’t pretty, and watching him play pool wasn’t mesmerizing.

He groaned, dragging a hand down his face as he opened his bedroom door and emerged from his den. He could smell the coffee in the kitchen, and made his way towards it, trying not to focus on his fuzzy tongue or the faint taste of stale booze in his mouth. He’d brush his teeth  _ after _ he had a cup of coffee and get all that bad stuff off of them at once. It was a positively foolproof plan.

When he entered the kitchen, Pidge looked up at him from her spot at the table. Just by looking at her, Lance could tell she’d already been drinking coffee like it was water. It was just how she survived waking up. But there was something in the  _ way _ her expression changed when she spotted him that immediately put him on edge.

Her eyebrows rose and a shit-eating grin spread across her face, as if she knew something that he didn’t.

“Last night was fun,” she offered flippantly, but that grin was still in place. And it was in that moment that Lance realized he must have done something incredibly stupid, embarrassing, or both. If Pidge was looking at him like that, he wasn’t even sure he wanted to know how badly he’d fucked up last night.

Swallowing past the lump in his throat, he forced a cheerful, “Sure was!” even as he squinted against the light streaming through the kitchen curtains.  _ Shit. Is it always this bright when I get up? _

“Yup,” Pidge popped the ‘ _ p _ ,’ her expression never wavering.

_ Oh, shit _ .

He’d done something he’d regret. He’d  _ definitely _ done something he was going to regret if Pidge was playing  _ this _ game. But he had to play it off like it had never happened, like he didn’t suspect anything. If he acted too eager or panicked, she would never tell him what he’d done and he really couldn’t deal with not knowing. So he resorted to the usual.

“Are you gonna kill me if I drink a cup of your coffee, gremlin?”

With a snort, she retorted, “Aren’t you gonna die from how bad you embarrassed Keith last night before I can?”

Lance was already pouring his cup of coffee, but spared a carefully quizzical look in her direction, trying not to squint against the light. He shrugged. “I did own him at pool, didn’t I? But it’s not like Keith would let himself be embarrassed by that. He’s my rival–he’s probably plotting his revenge. I know I’m plotting how I’m going to  _ crush _ him next time we play darts.”

He took a seat at the table, his back to the window, and blew on his coffee before taking a sip. It was hot and soothing going down and he sighed a little bit. As he settled in, the clatter of nails on the tile floor sounded, and Blue nudged insistently at his knees. He laughed and leaned down to pet her a few times before Pidge responded.

“Oh, please. Keith wouldn’t let that get to him.”

“Exactly. So how can he be embarrassed by something I did when, as we’ve established, I’ve done nothing to embarrass him?” Lance quirked an eyebrow, feeling victorious, but then he saw her grin–no, that smirk that was made of pure concentrated gremlin  _ evil _ –widen even further. Those were the exact words she’d been waiting for, or at least pretty damn close to them. And he had fallen straight into her devious trap.

“Oh. Well, if that’s how it is. I just didn’t realize you guys were on such... _ friendly _ terms.”

_ Abort. Abort. Abort.  _

Lance had absolutely no idea what Pidge was getting at, but he found himself feeling almost terrified. Something that gave Pidge such joy could only be blackmail material, and that meant that it was an act that was absolutely cringeworthy. What could he have done? What would make them ‘ _ friendly _ ’ with the kind of inflection that Pidge had put on those words?

“We’re the best of bros,  _ Pidgisita _ ,” Lance managed to keep most of the apprehension from his tone, “and we  _ are _ about to work together. We have a gallery opening at  _ Juniberries _ soon, remember?”

He couldn’t recall doing anything embarrassing, and that made it worse. Blue seemed to sense his slight unease, and she pushed her cool nose under his hand with a soft, almost comforting sound. 

“You guys seem like you’re already enjoying your  _ partnership _ .”

Lance could have sworn that his heart had stopped. Her insinuations, the inflection in her tone...oh, no.  _ What the fuck did you do, idiot? _

As he started to inwardly panic, it seemed that Pidge was ready to take pity on him. After a long pause, during which Lance desperately tried to find a comeback and anxiously continued to pet the nosy Blue, she snorted and delivered her final blow.

“After all, forehead kisses are such a common farewell among people that work together nowadays, aren’t they?”

There was an almighty lurch in the region of his stomach. For a fleeting moment, it was excitement– _ I kissed Keith _ !–but it soon turned to horror. What if Keith hadn’t felt the same? What if he thought Lance was weird for it? What if he really,  _ really _ didn’t like being touched? What if he wasn’t into guys?!

Wait. Why did him being into guys matter? And besides, hadn’t Pidge already implied at some point that Keith had been embarrassed? Embarrassed wasn’t disgusted, at the very least, so Keith wouldn’t change his mind about working with Lance for the  _ Juniberries _ show over a little something like this, would he? Because if it turned into a battle between the two of them for the gallery space, Lance knew that Keith would win. 

And aside from everything else, Lance  _ wanted _ to work with Keith.

“You should see your face,” Pidge drawled. “Are you embarrassed, horrified, or just constipated?”

“Stop fucking around!” Lance groaned, completely giving in and cursing under his breath in rapid Spanish that made Pidge arch a single brow. “Just tell me what really happened!”

“Cranky,” she commented, taking a long swig from her own coffee. “Didn’t I just tell you what happened? Or are you too hungover to understand the words I’m saying?”

“I understand you just fine, but I still think you’re fucking with me,” Lance retorted, reaching for his own coffee. But the image she’d put in his head...it felt tangible, almost like it had really happened. 

_ I kissed Keith _ .

He shook his head a little, glancing back at his friend. Pidge didn’t seem like she was going to let this go any time soon, practically  _ sneering _ like the cat that caught the canary, but Lance was still struggling to comprehend. 

If she was telling the truth, then he really had kissed Keith. It was only on the forehead, right? So maybe he could just play it off because he’d been intoxicated, and he’d  _ always _ been an affectionate drunk. Hunk, especially, would be able to confirm that. And if Lance could use that card, he wouldn’t have to have that awkward conversation about how he might have done it because he thought Keith was hot– _ Lance, no, what the fuck?! _

“Even my own  _ brain _ is betraying me!” he whined, tossing his hands up, but after only a few short seconds, as he slowly lowered his arms, he realized his mistake.

Her eyebrow arching even higher, Pidge took a long, slow sip of her coffee. “Oh,  _ really _ ? Do tell.”

“I’d much rather not,” Lance mumbled, dropping his forehead lightly to the wooden tabletop, letting his arms dangle uselessly at his sides. Blue nudged them with a soft whine, the sound of her tail lightly thumping against the floor filling his ears. “Don’t you have enough people to blackmail?”

“It’s always much more satisfying to blackmail you.”

“Blackmail? What blackmail? I’m  _ flawless _ , little gremlin, so you can’t  _ possibly _ have anything on me,” he tried his usual bravado, though he never lifted his head. The words came out muffled against the table.

“You really don’t want to go there, Lance,” Pidge outright laughed. “When I think I’ve seen it all, I get to add more to the library of shit I have on you.”

Lance did the mature thing and gave up, letting out a drawn out and exaggerated groan.

“That’s what I thought.” She sounded incredibly smug. “Now, back to the subject at hand, my absolutely pitiful friend. The most important part–you really  _ don’t _ remember kissing him, do you?”

Reluctantly, he mumbled, “No, I really don’t.”

“That’s amazing. I mean, I already knew you didn’t remember, but  _ still _ . If only you could see his face, Lance. He was as red as that flannel shirt he was wearing. Or maybe as red as that jacket he used to wear way back in high school. I wonder if he still  _ has _ that jacket…”

Lance groaned loudly, silently praying everything would just...work itself out. But then his mind caught up with Pidge’s rambling, and he sat up so quickly that he accidentally hit his arm on the table, moving it just a little. Pidge cut off mid-reminiscing and started to nag him for how, if her coffee had still been full, he’d have spilled it on her laptop, but he ignored her.

“Are you saying you went to  _ high school _ with  _ Keith _ ?!”

Pidge blinked a little, and then grinned again. “Oh, yeah. When you first started talking about your ‘rival’ Keith, I didn’t even connect the dots, but then I went with you when you were picking up your pieces from that new artist competition and ended up getting separated from you for a bit and talked to him again.” Pidge shrugged. “I kinda found out he was your rival then.”

“And you didn’t  _ tell _ me?!” his voice cracked, but Lance didn’t care. “I could have learned all of his deep, dark secrets! I could have the upper hand!”

“Please. You think you could ever have the upper hand on him? Besides, Lance, if  _ I _ went to high school with him, that means  _ you _ did, too. Did you really never pay attention to him back then?” 

Lance choked on the quick drink of coffee he’d reached for.

“Wait,  _ what?! _ ” he managed, coughing. He patted the Aussie distractedly as she nudged him in concern, but went immediately back to the subject at hand. “Shit, you’re right, we would’ve been at the same high school if you went to school with both of us. How did I…? No, nevermind that, was he the one guy that did all those crazy paintings that Iverson banned because he’s got no appreciation for art?”

“I’d forgotten about that,” Pidge mused, but she nodded. “That would be Keith. You’ve thought of him as your rival for that long, then?”

“Don’t judge me!” Lance felt his cheeks burning, and he pressed his forehead back against the cool wood of the table. “I can’t believe…”

“I can.” Pidge’s coffee cup clunked lightly on the tabletop. “I bet you hadn’t even realized that he’s Shiro’s little brother.”

“‘Lura mentioned it when we met up at  _ Juniberries _ ,” Lance admitted. All of his will to fight had left with the knowledge that he could have known Keith so much sooner. “Forget about that, though,  _ Pidgisita _ , why didn’t you tell me? I could know all of his secrets!”

“It was funny that you didn’t remember. Besides,” Pidge stood, heading to the coffee pot for a refill, “I’d never tell you any of Keith’s secrets, Lance. It’s the bro code, you should know that. And I’ve known him longer than I’ve known you or Hunk, since we went to a different middle school than you, so it’s only fair that I hold onto whatever information I have. The blackmail material gets riper with age, you know.”

The serious tone she’d adopted for the beginning morphed into a teasing tone at the end, but it was enough to make Lance drop it. At least for now.

“Gah,  _ fine _ . Keep your dirty little secrets to yourself. I’ll beat him on my own!”

“Aren’t you working together?”

“ _ Shhh, _ ” he raised a finger in front of his lips. “We may be working together, but we’re still rivals. We’re just under a truce right now. And while we work together, I’ll learn everything I need to know!”

Pidge rolled her eyes, and Lance laughed.

He still couldn’t shake the knowledge that he’d kissed Keith, even if it was just on the forehead, but he was going to do his best to put it behind him. He’d had enough of being awkward around Keith, and it was high time he started to be serious about the gallery opening. He had to make sure all of his pieces that they were planning to show were still in good condition, maybe replace a few frames, and create a few more paintings.

Lance nodded to himself, standing up and turning to put his cup in the sink, determination flooding through his veins.

He winced and nearly tripped as he faced the light and his head pounded, but he squinted and forged onward, resolving to brush his teeth and shower before doing anything else. The coffee had helped ease the groggy, cottony feeling inside his skull, but the light only increased the pounding headache. He’d have to combat the rest of his hangover with some water and an ibuprofen or something. But first, the fuzzy feeling inside his mouth had to go.

Blue trailed behind him as he prepared to leave the kitchen, wagging her tail, and he appreciated her company.

“Later, loser,” Pidge was smiling.

“Later,  _ Pidgisita, _ ” Lance grinned back.

* * *

 

Four days later, as Lance was getting ready for work, his phone rang.

Bouncing on one foot to maintain his balance as he reached for the phone, discarded on the nearby bed, he cursed. One foot was in his khakis and when he moved, he nearly tripped. He was treading on dangerous grounds.

_ Unknown Caller. _

Really? Someone he didn’t know, calling when he was in this...predicament? They couldn’t have called  _ before _ he started putting his pants on, or even after he was done? With a frown and a sigh, Lance answered the call anyway, tucking the phone between ear and shoulder as he tried to finish dressing.

“Hello?”

“...Lance?” the voice on the other end said, almost hesitantly. At the sound of the voice, Lance pulled too hard on his pants and yelped as he lost balance. He flung his hands out to catch himself haphazardly on the edge of his mattress, his phone flying into the mess of blankets on the bed. Cursing, he righted the issue, yanking his pants up and fumbling for his phone.

“Lance? Are you there?” it sounded like it wasn’t the first time he’d asked, because his voice was louder.

“ _ Por dios _ ,” Lance muttered as he finally found the phone. “Sorry, sorry, it’s me! I’m here.”

“...are you okay?”

“I’m great! Perfect! Are you kidding?” Lance laughed awkwardly, waving his free hand dismissively. He was doing a fine job. But then it occurred to him that maybe it wasn’t who he suspected on the other end of the line. “Wait–Keith. This  _ is _ Keith, right?”

There was a muffled snort and an affirmative answer.

“Good, okay, that’s great, but how did you get my number?” 

“I asked Pidge,” Keith responded simply. “If we’re working together, we need to be able to get in touch, right?”

“Yeah!” Lance agreed, only realizing a second later that perhaps he’d been too enthusiastic. He cursed himself and pushed the resurfacing  _ I kissed Keith _ to the back of his mind. “Best way to get shit done is to figure it out together, right buddy?”

“Sure. If you say so.” At least he sounded amused, Lance thought to himself. “Are you free tonight? I get off work at four, and if we’re doing that joint piece we should really start something as soon as possible.”

“Are you calling me from work?” Lance asked incredulously. “I mean, I work a normal shift today, and I get off at six, so if you’re off at four–”

“I’m on break,” Keith interrupted. “You’re off at six? Then can you meet me at  _ Juniberries _ around six-thirty so I can show you where my studio is?”

“You have a  _ studio _ ?” Lance asked, impressed in spite of himself.

“I share it with Shiro, and the gallery sponsors it. They’ve got a few studios in–”

“Oh, the ones above the  _ Castle of Lions _ !” Lance said, excitedly. “I’ve always wanted one, but I can never bring myself to apply. There’s way too many other artists around, I don’t think I’d be able to get one. Damn, Keithy-poo, you get  _ everything _ !”

“I do not,” he sighed, and Lance imagined him pinching the bridge of his nose. “Anyway, since you know where it is, just come there whenever you can. It’s Studio 3-B, on the third floor of the building.”

Lance nodded excitedly, then reminded himself that he was on the  _ phone _ . “I’ll be there,  _ asere _ ! Do I need to bring anything?”

“Nah, shouldn’t need anything,” he started, but a voice called for him and Keith cursed. “Shit. Boss is calling me back, so I gotta go. Just send me a text or something when you’re there or if you get lost or whatever.”

The call disconnected before Lance could even say goodbye, or later, or any kind of farewell at all. He blinked stupidly at the sound of the tone but then shook his head, sighing. A soft whine pulled his attention to the door, which had been cracked but opened wide as Blue nudged her way in. He dropped to a crouch, tossing his phone back onto his bed as he ruffled her furry face between his hands.

“There’s my girl!” he said brightly, pressing a kiss to her nose. “You knew it was about time for us to go to work, didn’t you?” 

She made a soft sound that he counted as her agreement, and he laughed.

“Give me a few more minutes, girl. I’ve gotta finish getting dressed, you know!”

Blue flopped down, staring up at him with big, imploring blue eyes. He turned his eyes away, laughing again as he continued the motions of getting ready. She let out a whine, trying to hurry him up, and he reached down to pat her on the head before rummaging through his clean clothes for his  _ Balmera _ shirt. And when that was done, he gathered Blue and her leash and they were off, heading to work together.

* * *

 

Lance climbed the stairs beside Coran’s  _ Castle of Lions _ with a pounding heart.

He  _ shouldn’t _ have any reason to be nervous! He was just seeing his buddy, his bro, to work on their joint gallery show and figure everything out. They had to get started somehow, after all! And he certainly didn’t need to fret, and there was definitely no reason for his sweaty palms. It’s not like Lance was meeting a person he was attracted to for the first time since he’d allegedly kissed him, drunkenly, on the forehead, because that would be  _ preposterous _ .

And...entirely true.

_ Shit _ .

At this point, climbing the metal outer stairs to the third floor with his pulse racing, Lance couldn’t deny that what he felt was more than a rivalry or even a friendship. There was the niggling seed of attraction that wouldn’t go away no matter how hard Lance had tried to force it to the back of his mind, and knowing that he’d acted on it while drunk, even a little, made it harder to push away. So it made seeing Keith for the first time since that night extra nerve-wracking. Lance kind of wished he hadn’t dropped Blue off at home after work, just so he’d have the moral support of his best furry friend, but he would have to deal.

He was counting on Keith to maintain the normalcy of their relationship...whatever  _ that _ meant.

Lance shook his head and pushed open the door on the third floor landing, looking around for the studios on either side. One door nearby was open, but the studio definitely belonged to someone far more spontaneous than Keith or Shiro, because the canvases along the wall were covered in abstract designs. There was a woman twirling around the middle of the room, lipsyncing with the peppy song playing fairly loudly through her corner speakers. And then, mid-twirl, she opened her eyes and spotted Lance.

“Oh!” she stopped, grinning sheepishly and edging behind an easel, just a little. “Hi there. C-can I help you?”

“Sorry! Didn’t mean to intrude,” Lance waved his hands in front of him awkwardly, noting her long pigtails. Her hair was dyed in the mermaid trend his little sister loved, and the varying shades of blue in her hair brought out her equally bright eyes and Lance admitted that she was pretty cute. Maybe, if he could gather his wits about him and get over whatever his thing for Keith was, he’d try flirting with her.

_ Not now, Lance _ , he scolded himself.

“I’m, uh, looking for 3-B? Keith told me to come over when I got off work…”

“Oh, you’re a friend of Keith’s?” she brightened a little, stepping out from behind the easel. “He’s the next one over. I’m 3-D and across the hall is 3-C.”

“Yeah, I kinda figured this wasn’t the right one,” Lance laughed a little, scratching the back of his neck awkwardly. “Sorry about that. The name’s Lance, by the way. Keith and I are gonna be working together for a while for a show.”

“I’m Plaxum, and you’re the guy he’s doing the  _ Juniberries _ show with, right?” she asked, quirking an eyebrow. “Knock ‘em dead, then! That’ll teach that Galra idiot that he’s with the wrong artist guild, won’t it? Just goes to show that I was right all along, and all of them really  _ have  _ been brainwashed by a superior alien society.”

“I...uh...yeah?” he wasn’t sure where to start. The Galra? Brainwashed by some kind of alien society? He was more inclined to think they were just terrible people that had banded together, but he supposed Plaxum could believe whatever she wanted about them. Lance couldn’t help but wonder about her sanity, just a little, but aliens were more plausible than Sasquatch.

“Definitely,” she nodded sagely. “That or they  _ are  _ aliens, trying to brainwash us. What do you think?”

“I’m not, uh, sure yet,” Lance shifted awkwardly, glancing down the hall to the next door. “I’ll have to think about it some. And it was nice to meet you, Plaxum, but Keith and I have a lot of work to do so I’d better get over there…”

“Oh yeah! Sure, sorry for keeping you! Drop by again sometime! Let me know your thoughts on the Galran alien conspiracy next time, okay?” she smiled and waved at him, turning back to her studio and looking at one of her paintings. 

“S-sure thing,” he answered, laughing a little as she reached for a brush. Lance briefly wondered if there were hidden meanings or codes in her abstract designs before he moved on, heading to the door she’d said belonged to Keith.

The 3-B was peeling from the studio door, but it gave it character. Or so Lance told himself, but his attention was drawn to the paint that had been applied to the door itself, likely by the people that used the studio. It had to have been something that dried fast, because using oil paints on anything in such a fairly public place would have been nonsensical, but the designs still showed every bit of the skill and mastery Keith held over his strokes. The colors weren’t as rich as they would have been in oil, perhaps, but Lance admired the way the flames at the bottom of the door and the edges felt as though they were coming out through the cracks. He probably could have spent all day staring, but it wasn’t just Keith’s work–he could see some of Shiro’s work, too. There had been a time when Shiro stepped away from his ink wash paintings to do some very geometric designs, and that’s what his contribution to their studio door reminded Lance of. They weren’t symmetrical, and they weren’t really a pattern because nothing repeated, but the designs ran up and down the door in tight, concise lines. They kind of reminded Lance of old Celtic knots, but more...digital. Kind of like a motherboard or something. And it was all wrapped together by the way Keith had imitated the designs at the edge of his flames, making them look as though they were bubbling and cracking from the heat.

Lance was struck, yet again, with the knowledge that Keith was so far ahead of him. His technique was so much more  _ fluid _ than Lance’s, even though Lance was the one that used watercolors. And it wasn’t  _ fluid _ in the sense that his brushstrokes were smooth and even, but more in the sense that Keith was so much more  _ adaptable _ .

For someone who used such a fluid medium in his work, Lance was starting to realize just how stiff his capabilities were.

“Snap out of it,” Lance scolded himself, rolling his shoulders. “You gotta knock, you know. Stop gawking.”

“Do you always talk to yourself outside other people’s doors?”

“ _ Shit! _ ” Lance yelped, spinning on his heel to find Keith, of all people, standing behind him. “Keith, ol’ buddy, ol’ pal, I thought–wait, shouldn’t you be  _ inside  _ the studio?”

Keith had said he’d be waiting for Lance, so it didn’t make sense for him to be  _ behind _ him. Maybe he’d gone to run some errands and thought he’d be back, or maybe Lance had missed a text. He had to resist the urge to grab for his phone just to double check.

“You were quicker than I expected,” Keith arched a single dark eyebrow, and then he held his right hand forward. “Take it.”

It took Lance an embarrassingly long moment to recognize the logo on the cup and realize that Keith was offering him a to go cup from  _ The Castle of Lions _ downstairs. It took an awkward moment for him to finally reach forward and take it from Keith, flashing a cheeky grin.

“ _ Awww _ , for me? Keithy-poo, you shouldn’t have!” he held a hand over his heart. He had to use the dramatic flair to hide the fact that he was actually quite flustered.

“Don’t make me regret it,” Keith’s tone was deadpan, but Lance saw the amusement twinkling in his eyes. “I can’t believe the amount of sugar Coran piled in there. I’m surprised it’s not just coffee  _ flavored _ syrup. But he swears this was your usual–”

“Aw,  _ yeah _ ! You’re the  _ best _ !” Lance beamed, taking a huge sip. The sweet caramel on his tongue and the thoughtfulness Keith had put into  _ asking  _ what his usual was made him feel like he was floating. “It’s  _ perfect _ . My man Coran sure makes a damn good coffee.”

“Yours hardly qualifies as a  _ coffee _ ,” Keith drawled, stepping past Lance to open the unlocked studio door.

“Why, I never!” Lance retorted, feigning affront and clutching the coffee cup carefully to his chest. “My coffee is  _ offended _ . It is just as much a true coffee as any of its bland, bitter brethren!”

Keith snorted and shook his head. “If you say so,” he took a drink of his undoubtedly black coffee.  _ Blech _ . “Are you going to stand out there or are you going to actually come in?”

It took a moment for Lance to realize that he was staring. Again.

The door had been one thing. The inside, however, was another story entirely. Just standing outside the open doorway, he could see where it split from Shiro’s workspace to Keith’s. Three-quarters of the studio was definitely dominated by Keith’s work.

“ _ Ñooo _ ,” Lance found himself exhaling in awe before he could stop himself.

It was one thing to see an artist’s finished work in a gallery, surrounded by other completed pieces, but when you got to see their studio, it was a nearly religious experience. Lance could see Keith’s process through the layout and the varying stages of his incomplete paintings. He could tell that Keith worked more on the messy side, and that Shiro was a bit more of a neat freak when it came to how his workspace was organized. And Lance could see so much more in just  _ sketches _ , papers scattered across flat surfaces or sometimes pinned to the walls, than a single finished piece could ever tell him.

Seeing into an artist’s studio was probably more intimate than walking in on them in the shower, Lance decided, because he couldn’t imagine Keith  _ telling _ him half of the stuff he saw just by glancing around the room.

“Sorry about the mess,” Keith trailed off, almost uncertainly, as he took another drink of coffee before sitting his cup on the desk by the door. It was the cleanest surface on his side of the studio, and the laptop sitting on it was currently on its screensaver, the rainbow ribbons twining across the screen. “I should’ve tried to clean or something.”

Lance laughed, waving his free hand dismissively at Keith. “Oh, no, man, it’s just  _ me _ ,” he said, finally slipping fully into the room. “Besides, it’s not that bad. Really. You should see Pidge’s space when she’s working on something. Well, to be fair, you wouldn’t even be able to  _ see _ her space, she tosses so much shit around. The creepy thing is that she  _ always _ knows exactly where everything is. ‘ _ Pass me that green wire. Three feet to your left, under the flux capacitor and a wrench, on top of the hydraulic compressor _ ’. I swear.”

“Flux capacitor, huh?”

Lance groaned. “I watched  _ Back to the Future _ last night with Hunk, okay?” he pouted...until he realized he was doing it, and then reverted to just frowning. “The  _ point _ is that Pidge has some sort of genius sixth sense or something. And her ‘ _ lab _ ’ is a disaster, so your studio looks like a hospital or something when you compare the two.”

“She’s always been like that,” Keith noted, choosing to ignore the rest of Lance’s word vomit. Lance was incredibly grateful for that. “Anyway, we were going to figure out that triptych or whatever, weren’t we?”

“Oh, yeah, you’re right!” Lance laughed loudly, pretending that he hadn’t forgotten. The truth was that he’d been too distracted by the paintings and works-in-progress that surrounded him to pay much attention to the actual reason he was there. “Like, what do we want to do it  _ of _ , and how are we gonna show off both of our styles,  _ et cetera _ . You got any ideas? I’ve got a couple, but I’d rather hear yours first.”

He did have an idea of a location, but he’d save that thought.

“I’ve got a few,” Keith shrugged, taking a seat at the desk and spinning around to wake up his laptop. Lance belatedly noticed the drawing tablet in front of it, and his curiosity was piqued. Did Keith also excel at  _ digital _ , too? Was there  _ anything _ he couldn’t do?

“Let’s hear ‘em!” Lance grinned, and Keith motioned for him to take the chair from the other desk–Shiro’s, he assumed–as he moved to open a document on his laptop.

“I’ve got some vague ideas here, but there’s nothing I’m really attached to. We’ll just go through them pretty quick and then we can talk about yours.”

“Deal,” Lance nodded enthusiastically. He couldn’t wait to see what ideas Keith had in mind.

There were a few moments of waiting, and then the file loaded up. There were several layers, but Lance couldn’t see anything on them from his angle. Keith maneuvered around the document and a few seconds later, a digital sketch showed up. For a second, Lance thought it had been drawn at three-quarters opacity, but then he realized that it had been done in a red brush. Lance found it odd that Keith would sketch in a different color before he remembered that, the few times he’d done a digital drawing, he’d done the first sketch in blue.

When he finally pulled himself away from analyzing Keith’s brush color choice, he examined the sketch itself. It was on three artboards, side by side in the program, imitating a triptych. Lance liked the order that he’d set up, which was labeled in what Lance assumed was Keith’s handwriting at the bottom of each board. He didn’t like it just because Keith had given him the left canvas, the  _ first _ , but rather because it made sense to ease from the softer, tender watercolors into the richer, vibrant oils. It would make a kind of predictable statement, but one that still worked.

The sketch itself was of a fairly famous mecha statue in the square that  _ Juniberries _ was in. The  _ Voltron _ statue was a tourist attraction and no one quite understood why, but it made Allura happy. It was, after all, the culmination of her father’s lifetime of art and sculpting, and it had made quite an impression. The idea of doing that for their triptych, for the headlining piece of their joint show at  _ Juniberries _ , the gallery that the late Alfor had founded, was interesting, and would make a bold statement, but Lance could also see why Keith wasn’t completely sold on it. There was just  _ something _ missing, though he couldn’t quite put his finger on whatever  _ it  _ was.

“Can I see the next one?” Lance asked, lifting his coffee to take another drink as Keith made a noise of assent in his throat.

“The next one is way too cliché,” he prefaced as he moved the mouse and hid the current layer before moving on to reveal the next, “but I had to try it anyway.”

“I feel you there,” Lance laughed, leaning forward a little while the image came up, his shoulder brushing against Keith’s. When the layer did come into focus, Lance knew immediately what Keith had meant.

Fire and ice.

Lance’s watercolors were still on the left, and with the help of Keith’s rough sketches and his written notes, he knew it was a combination of water and ice. The watercolor and oil clashed in the center, in a twisting nebula where the ice had faded to water and clashed with Keith’s fire. The third canvas, where the oil would make up Keith’s flames, reminded Lance of the door to the studio. It was definitely predictable, and just as cliché as Keith had warned, but it did sum up their styles pretty nicely.

Lance still wasn’t sold on that and he frowned a little as he considered it. But, in the end, he still felt that they could do something...well, something  _ more _ . He just believed that their collaboration had a lot of potential, though he couldn’t say how he’d come to that conclusion after their rough first few encounters.

“Next,” he finally said, and Keith obliged.

This one was….well, it was different, to say the least. 

It was  _ them _ . Well, rough sketches with almost no details, but they were portraits. Not really self-portraits, because the oil portion had half of Lance’s face and Lance would have half of Keith’s in his watercolors, though they would mix the two in the center panel. 

“I was running out of ideas,” Keith sounded kind of embarrassed, if that was possible for him, and he clicked through a few other sketches. One had them flip-flopped, where it would be more like a self-portrait, and another was their profiles facing away from each other, another facing towards each other, and another design where one of them would be right side up and the other upside down. “I liked the idea of this one best of the portraits, but again, I’m still not attached.”

The one he’d stopped on kind of reminded Lance of yin and yang. They were in profile, perhaps even silhouette, facing towards each other, with one of them upside down and the other oriented normally, curving around each other. It was Lance’s favorite portrait-style one, too, but he didn’t think it would showcase their different skillsets quite as well.

At this point, Keith seemed to understand that Lance would take a few minutes and then move on, holding out his verbal judgement until he’d seen the others, and he moved to the next set. He occasionally said a few words, but he didn’t really try to justify anything...except for the last one.

“Is that...Varadero beach?!” Lance leaned forward, crowding into Keith’s shoulder as he peered at the really rough sketch there. “It is, isn’t it?”

He turned to look at Keith, who focused on the screen and avoided meeting Lance’s eyes. “Yeah, it is. I was thinking, since I know you like the place, or have a lot of memories there, we could think about doing something with it.”

Aw,  _ shit _ . That was way too nice of him, and Lance didn’t need another thing to draw him towards the grumpy oil painter. He already had his looks and his skill and that attitude that was equal parts infuriating and sexy. Plus, he had his demons just like everyone else did, and it was always part of the draw–to find someone who could share your baggage, and who felt like they could share theirs with you. They weren’t there yet, but Lance liked to think they could get there. But on top of all of that, Keith didn’t need to show such  _ compassion _ , too.

“Aw, man, Keithy-boy, you’re amazing,” Lance laughed, purposely leaning his weight against Keith where their shoulders pressed together. “Really, you are. But this whole thing isn’t about  _ me _ , y’know, though I am pretty fabulous, if I do say so myself. Which I do. But we should pick some kind of theme that means something. To both of us. Though I really do appreciate the thought.”

And he did. It was thoughtful and sweet, but sometimes memories are best left in the past. Lance missed Varadero, and he’d definitely go back to visit that lovely stretch of beach someday, but he was more focused on the present now. In the present was where he’d stay. 

Keith shrugged. “If you say so. Anyway, what are you thinking?”

Lance thought about it for a few minutes. There were some interesting ideas, and he really liked the idea of using  _ Voltron _ , but there was still something missing in all of them. He managed to say as much without even realizing he’d voiced his thoughts until Keith agreed with them, and they both stared in silence at the Varadero sketch while they thought.

Something was missing. 

There had been a few examples that would have showcased their styles, both of them, fairly well. That much was definitely there. There were a few others in which their styles would have bled together as one rather than standing out as two distinct artists’ work, which would make for a great piece but not a very good one for headlining their show. In Keith’s sketches, there had also been a few that would make really big, strong statements–like Voltron, or even the yin and yang silhouettes one–but it wouldn’t mean anything if they couldn’t introduce themselves through their art for the sake of the first piece on display.

It wasn’t like they’d known each other that long. They didn’t exactly have many shared places or memories– _ wait a minute _ .

“The park,” Lance blurted, the idea whirling around in his head almost faster than he could grasp it. “ _ Por dios _ , Keith, the  _ park _ . The spot by the creek that we’re  _ both _ already working on. Why don’t we do  _ that _ ?”

Keith’s eyes widened a little, and he finally turned to meet Lance’s gaze.

Excitedly, Lance continued, “Seriously! It would be a huge statement, too, because it’s kinda where we met. Or at least where we started to get to know each other better. And we obviously both feel some kind of draw to the place, or we wouldn’t both have been painting it. It’s  _ perfect _ , and all because it actually means something to  _ both _ of us! The only thing that would make it better is if it was fall, because then you could get some really great autumn colors going on–”

“I can still do that,” Keith interjected, switching to a new layer and starting a rough sketch in a smooth transition from mouse to tablet. “I’ve got photos of that spot from before winter around here somewhere. Not as good as the real thing, but–”

“That’s  _ perfect _ ! How do we want to set up the composition?”

Keith continued sketching as he and Lance tossed ideas back and forth between them. It took a few hours, but around nine o’clock, they both sat back and looked at the rough digital sketch. At some point, Lance had come into possession of the stylus and had helped with the sketch before passing it back to Keith, and so on, until they had what they were looking at. It was a rough sketch, for sure, but something clicked.

It wasn’t anything grand. Landscapes like that hardly ever were. And maybe it wouldn’t make a statement to anyone but them, but that was alright. They’d found their triptych, and with a glance at each other and a shared, satisfied grin, Lance knew it was the right choice.

* * *

 

Keith could tell that Lance could tell why he’d stated at the beginning that he wasn’t particularly attached to any of the ideas he’d sketched out. He could read it in the watercolorist’s expressive features, from the furrow in his brow to the crinkle at the corners of his eyes, and even a little in the slight downward curve of his mouth. And even though Keith tried not to look at Lance so much, it was increasingly difficult with every second that Lance leaned against his shoulder for a better look at the screen.

His forehead burned with the memory of another touch from Lance, but Keith pushed it aside.

Almost thirty minutes had passed before Keith finally pulled up the last sketch layer in his document and had to show Lance the Varadero Beach idea. He’d almost regretted drawing it, because it was tangible proof that he had been thinking about Lance far more than he should have been.

He’d remembered how Lance’s eyes had twinkled when he talked about his watercolor painting of that very same beach, the very painting that Keith had recognized him for, and his hand had moved of its own accord. His browsing history was evidence enough, because he’d pulled up a search bar and looked for that beach, scrolling through and changing search terms for over an hour until he found a few different scenes he thought Lance would like.

Even if Keith still wasn’t sold on  _ this _ concept, either, part of him just wanted to see Lance’s reaction. Payback, maybe, for the sudden forehead kiss that Lance had bestowed upon him.

And he wasn’t disappointed.

Lance babbled excitedly for a moment, as was his style, before almost scolding Keith for thinking of an idea that meant a lot to Lance. He started into a spiel about how they needed to find something that had meaning to both of them, and then sat up with a gasp. When he started to grin, he glowed with pride, and Keith could tell that Lance had found his answer long before he’d opened his mouth to speak.

“The park,” he’d breathed. His excitement practically exploded out of him in a rushed string of words that Keith almost had trouble following. “ _ Por dios _ , Keith, the  _ park _ .”

Lance continued speaking about a mile a minute, but Keith didn’t need to hear all of his explanations. He already  _ knew _ just what Lance was getting at, and he found himself turning to fully meet Lance’s gaze, allowing himself to bask momentarily in the way his eyes twinkled with his excitement. With a mutual grin, they shared the moment where they realized how perfect Lance’s suggestion was...but Lance was still talking.

“It’s  _ perfect _ , and all because it actually means something to  _ both _ of us! The only thing that would make it better is if it was fall, because then you could get some really great autumn colors going on–”

“I can still do that,” he found himself blurting out when he’d finally caught up to what he’d missed in Lance’s rambling, almost as if in response to a challenge. Keith turned to his computer and hid the Varadero layer, opening a new one and reaching for his stylus. He pulled his tablet closer and added, “I’ve got photos of that spot from before winter around here somewhere. Not as good as the real thing, but–”

“That’s  _ perfect _ !” Lance’s vocabulary seemed a little limited, but Keith couldn’t blame him. The creek where they had, for lack of a better term,  _ bonded _ , just clicked. It fit so much better than any of the other ideas he’d come up with, and it made his pulse race with anticipation. That made it the perfect choice to him, so it was understandable that Lance had latched onto the idea as well. 

The started to talk about the composition then, trading the stylus back and forth and sharing thoughts and criticisms as they sketched. The photos Keith mentioned made an appearance, and from them they were able to decide on a rough layout for the scene. Time flew by as they worked in tandem, almost like a well oiled machine, and when they were satisfied with the composition, it was just a few minutes past nine.

Keith was surprised to realize he didn’t want the night to end yet. He hadn’t had this much fun working with anyone other than Shiro where his art was concerned, mostly because people just didn’t work the same way he did, but somehow working with Lance was easy. It was almost like Lance had adapted to his methods, because while it had seemed a little clunky in the beginning, the flow was smooth by the end of the sketch. And not only did Keith have fun working with Lance, but he wanted to do it again. Not just on this piece, but on something else. They’d somehow built a nice back-and-forth, and Keith would like to see what insight Lance might have on some of his other works, the ones that were scattered around the room, left unfinished until he had some direction to take them in.

But Keith did have work early the next morning, so pressing on into the next phase of their collaboration tonight probably wasn’t a good idea, no matter how much he wanted to ask Lance if he was interested in continuing.

It was just an excuse, though, to cover up the fact that he wished there was a way he could spend a little more time with the other artist before they went their separate ways for the evening.

Keith shook his head a little, leaning back in his chair and trying to direct his thoughts back to something safer, like the sketch in front of him or what Shiro might have made for dinner. Maybe there would be some leftovers?

Distracting himself worked for a little while, until a loud, exaggerated groan drew his attention towards his companion. Lance was stretching, and then allowed himself to sag into the chair a little bit, stifling a yawn. He’d pushed himself away from the desk a little while Keith was lost in thought, and once his yawn was done, he sat up a little straighter again and started to spin in slow circles. Keith was struck, in that instant, by how content Lance looked. He wore a lazy, satisfied grin on his lips, and sank into the desk chair like it was the most comfortable seat he’d ever taken as he continued to twirl in place.

In some ways, Lance’s childishness was incredibly endearing, and Keith wanted to kick himself for thinking it.

With a sigh, Lance paused, and his face morphed from content to distaste. “I work the opening shift tomorrow.  _ Ugh _ . I can’t believe Rax hates me that much! He  _ knows _ I need my beauty sleep!”

Keith raised a brow, silently praying that Lance  _ never _ realized that he might have been staring. He chose to ignore the beauty sleep comment and instead questioned, “Rax?”

Lance spun to face Keith, propping his elbows on his knees and leaning forward, almost like they were co-conspirators. “Yeah,  _ Rax _ . He’s co-owner of  _ Balmera _ with his sister, Shay–who is head over heels for Hunk and vice-versa, might I add, though they’re both too stubborn to make any kind of move. Anyway! Rax has had it out for me since the day I started working there, when I accidentally tripped over some lady’s runaway chihuahua and sent the wood chips he was carrying all over the floor. Don’t worry, though! No chihuahuas were harmed in the making of Rax’s everlasting hatred, since it was technically the leash that I slipped on.”

He was so dramatic. Keith snorted at Lance’s total seriousness, and the man in question feigned being offended.

After a few moments, Lance remarked, almost petulantly, “It doesn’t help that Brenda can’t keep her mouth shut. I swear, she must love the sound of her own voice!”

“Wow, I can’t imagine,” Keith’s sarcasm slipped out, but the smile he could feel on his face probably betrayed his total lack of hostility. 

“Okay, rude,” Lance laughed, sticking his tongue out in a mature act of retaliation.

“Just being honest,” Keith shrugged, and then as an afterthought prompted, “What did Brenda talk about, anyway?”

“The time Blue jumped you in the shop, and I made her swipe my discount for you and told her you were m–I didn’t mean to tell you that.”

The way Lance cut himself short abruptly made Keith insanely curious, but his first reaction was to think back on that day and remember thinking that he’d had to spend less than usual. It wasn’t by much, but it was still less. “Wait,  _ that’s _ why my stuff was cheaper? I just thought I’d forgotten something.” 

It took him a moment to realize that Lance was pointedly avoiding eye contact and that he was wringing his hands nervously in his lap. Was he embarrassed about something? And what kind of thing would make him freeze up like that in the first place? Lance was the most outgoing person that he’d ever met, so the idea that something had made him clam up was new. But then Keith started to wonder about what Lance  _ hadn’t _ said.

“The discount, though,” he mused aloud, “that still doesn’t explain why Brenda blabbing would get this Rax guy to punish you. And what did you tell Brenda I was?”

If possible, Lance drew farther back into the cushion of the computer chair.

“I told her you were an artist?”

Keith might have let the obvious dodge slide if Lance hadn’t allowed his voice to lilt, a questioning tone prevalent throughout. Keith gave Lance a look and remained silent, arching a brow, and Lance groaned and slid a few inches farther into the chair before murmuring, his voice cracking, “I told her you were my boyfriend.”

Keith felt his mouth go dry and his palms get sweaty, and he mentally cursed his body for reacting like a kid with a crush. He cast around for something to say, but Lance beat him to it, seeming to think that filling the silence with words would make everything better. 

“I mean, I’m sorry I didn’t ask you first and all that, but at that point I’m pretty sure you hated me and Blue, and I wanted to apologize in a subtle way, I guess? And we’re only supposed to use the employee discounts for immediate family members and significant others usually count, so it’s the first thing I thought of. But because of Brenda and her big mouth, all my coworkers think we’re together, and I  _ really _ should have asked you–”

“It’s fine, Lance,” he found himself speaking past a nervous lump in his throat. “Really, it’s fine. I...I don’t mind that you didn’t.”

_ I wouldn’t mind dating you _ , he wanted to add, but refrained.

Lance looked up, though, his shoulders sagging in relief. He spoke in a voice a little smaller than Keith had expected when he asked, “Are you sure?”

He shrugged, trying not to show his own embarrassment. “Yeah. You did it to help me out and to apologize for Blue, right? Of course it’s fine, Lance. And consider the apology accepted, while you’re at it.”

At that, the watercolorist laughed. It was a sound Keith was relieved to hear. And while it might have been a little strained, Keith could tell it was still genuine. It wasn’t forced. It was almost like Lance hadn’t expected to laugh and it had caught him off guard.

“Rax has had it in for me since day one, you know. He’s so suspicious of everything I do that when Brenda ask me,  _ in front of him _ , how my boyfriend was, and if he’d accepted my discount apology, it was like someone flipped a switch. He turned into a fucking  _ bloodhound _ , man. And then Brenda had to go and give Rax context for it–” he cleared his throat abruptly and then pitched his voice up in a poor imitation of his coworker, “–’oh, did you know Lance had a boyfriend? He’s such a catch! And Blue loves him  _ so much _ that she jumped on him, but he and Lance were fighting because Lance forgot to buy the cat stuff like he’d promised so Lance had me use his discount to make up for it and he told me not to tell his boyfriend. Ugh, Rax, they’re  _ so _ adorable!’ Like, Brenda,  _ please _ .”

Keith wondered how much of Brenda’s babble Lance had actually memorized and how much had been exaggeration, but that was dangerous territory. It meant considering the possibility that  _ he’s such a catch _ had been Lance’s words, and the idea honestly excited Keith more than he cared to admit.

He gathered his wits, though, and found a skeptical tone. “So...because of Brenda, your boss is punishing you? Over suspicions that you misused your employee discount or something like that?”

“Oh, it’s  _ definitely _ that. And he really still isn’t over that runaway chihuahua incident, so now that he’s got this idea that I could be cheating the  _ Balmera _ out of money, he’s been watching me like a hawk! I can’t even take a piss without him counting the seconds until I’m out of the bathroom. And I just  _ know _ he gave me this opening shift at the last minute because I told Shay that I’m usually up kind of late. I still don’t get how a sweet girl like her ended up with a brother like him. He’s such a piece of work!”

Lance tossed his hands up, showing that his usual flair for the dramatic had returned. He must have recovered from the embarrassment or guilt or  _ whatever _ that he’d been feeling if he was this energetic again. Keith was glad for that, but it was a struggle to convince himself that it would be better if they steered away from the  _ everyone at Balmera thinks we’re dating  _ thing. For his sanity and their working relationship, at least.

“Of  _ course _ he must be out to get you,” Keith’s tone was deadpan, for which he thanked all his practice at keeping a straight face in his younger days when he’d had disagreements with authority, and it earned him a pout. A grown man shouldn’t be so endearing when he acted childish like that, but Keith had almost learned to expect the unexpected where Lance McClain was concerned. He forced himself to focus on the conversation and  asked, “Are you sure you didn’t do something else to piss him off?”

“Why, I never!” Lance huffed, placing a hand over his heart. “Of course I’m sure! Did you not hear that he’s hated me since Hell’s Chihuahua? I’m telling you, babe, Rax has been dying to fire me since the second Shay hired me. Though it may have something to do with how my best friend is head over heels for his sister, and how Shay  _ definitely  _ feels the same about him, and they’re the only ones who haven’t noticed. But that’s not something  _ I _ did, so he really shouldn’t take it out on me!”

Keith had short-circuited at the casual term of endearment near the beginning of Lance’s newest tirade. He’d recovered by the end of Lance’s spiel, but his ability to keep cool was constantly in jeopardy with Lance’s fluid personality. It seemed like Lance had slipped that  _ babe _ in without even realizing, which Keith wasn’t sure how to take.

“I take it that Rax is an overprotective brother, then? Or just that he doesn’t approve of Hunk?” Keith managed to ask, pushing the thought aside for now.

“Both,” Lance responded instantly, frowning. “But I don’t understand it? Hunk’s literally the sweetest person you will  _ ever  _ meet. He couldn’t hurt a fly, let alone the girl he likes.”

From what Keith knew of Hunk, that statement was pretty accurate. The few times they’d met, Hunk had been all smiles and kindness, even if Keith hadn’t been nearly as friendly. It seemed like he was just that kind of guy, and in his opinion, Rax was an idiot.

Lance groaned then, and Keith realized that he was checking the time on his phone. “I could go on about this for hours, man, but I really should head home. Seven comes really early, and I just  _ know _ it’ll be two o’clock before I fall asleep.”

“Yeah...I work early tomorrow, too,” Keith said slowly, sighing. Despite wanting to spend more time with Lance, he took the chance to disband now, since they both needed sleep for work in the morning. As he stood, he asked, “When did you want to get started on the painting?”

With a laugh and a twinkle in his eyes, Lance asked, “How’s tomorrow sound? Maybe five-ish?”

Keith was done with work at four. “Sounds like a plan.”

Lance stood and stretched to his full height, his long limbs distracting Keith for more than a few seconds.  _ Shit _ . But then he wheeled Shiro’s desk chair back to where it belonged and made his way a few steps to the door. With one more grin, he saluted Keith and said cheerfully, “See ya later, space ranger!”

After he was gone–Keith could have  _ sworn _ he heard Lance  _ whistling _ down the hallway before the door fell closed–Keith shook his head and asked himself, “Space ranger? Where’d he get that?”

He figured that he wouldn’t come up with a good answer to that question, so he focused on packing his laptop away and gathering together all of the things he might use before he was back here tomorrow night, but even the busy work of packing things away couldn’t keep his thoughts of Lance at bay for long. The realization that his little infatuation was going to be more persistent than he’d originally thought wasn’t helping matters, and tonight had given him a whole slew of new things that he had to try to  _ not _ think about. 

Their shoulders brushing, the way they worked so well in tandem even though Keith had rarely worked well with anyone else, even that sparkle in Lance’s eyes when he found an answer to a particularly stubborn question. And the story of the discount that Lance had let slip–just knowing that there were people at  _ Balmera _ who thought he and Lance were  _ together _ and didn’t question it made him happy in a way he couldn’t explain.

He tried not to think about how Lance hadn’t realized he’d called Keith  _ babe _ , but that was a fruitless effort. That particular memory wouldn’t go away any time soon, like that forehead kiss.

Keith groaned and zipped his laptop bag shut.

These were thoughts for a night when he didn’t have work the next morning.

* * *

 

The days started to fly by.

The first night of actually sketching on canvas, they made the executive decision to  _ not _ sketch on the canvas just yet and instead took two large sketchbooks out to their spot. Keith had to keep Lance from doodling little chibi characters on the corners of his sketchbook, and Lance laughed at the playful glare Keith cast his way. The second night passed in much the same way, and on the third night they finally brought the canvases out to sketch on them.

Lance ended up being the voice of reason when they were trying to decide  _ where _ to paint, acknowledging that the time and effort in transporting the canvases to the park would take longer than they could afford to spend. Keith was forced to agree. He went to take pictures, and on the fifth night, they went through and agreed on the one they deemed the best reference.

It was the sixth night that they actually started painting.

On the eleventh day, the watercolor base for the centerpiece was completed. Lance asked for Keith’s help with transitioning into oil, which somehow involved paint dripping on Keith’s favorite shoes and a smudge across Lance’s cheek, but they managed to stay mostly on task. Keith took a mostly clean cloth to wipe the paint off of Lance’s cheek, and Lance sheepishly apologized for the paint on Keith’s shoe, and they stayed side by side for the rest of the evening as they worked.

On the fifteenth day, about a month into the process, Keith found himself in  _ Balmera _ . He knew Lance should be working, because they were going to meet up for coffee in Coran’s shop when Lance got off before heading up to the studio. He wasn’t exactly sure why he was in the shop, but when Lance caught his eye, Keith could tell it had been a rough day, and it looked like the man with him was annoyed.

Keith knew exactly where Red’s favorite cat treats were, but he paused by Lance to ask anyway.

“Keith! Hang on, Rax, I’ll be right back,” Lance said quickly, gesturing for Keith to walk beside him. “They’re right this way!” and, once they were out of earshot, “Oh, thank  _ God _ , I was about to lose my temper  _ and  _ my job. You’re a lifesaver!”

“That’s Rax?” Keith asked, slipping slightly ahead of Lance to grab the treats. Lance nodded vigorously, glancing over his shoulder as if he’d expected his boss to follow him back here.

“Yeah, and he was starting to bug me about you, if you’d believe it. No one has seen us together since that first day, and he’s getting really annoying about misusing my discount. Brenda’s been arguing that we’re cute together, and Rax shouldn’t be such a grump, and Shay’s been leveling him out, but it’s her day off and since she’s  _ finally _ going on a date with Hunk, he’s extra angry and is taking it out on me, like usual!”

He spoke softly and quickly, but Keith could see the irritation hovering just beneath the surface.

“I need litter,” he said, prompting Lance to walk with him in another direction. He still had plenty of litter, but he decided giving Lance a few minutes away from Rax was a good idea while he decided what he could do to help. “What was he saying to piss you off so bad?”

Lance shook his head. “No, I’m not gonna go there. I just needed a sec to cool off.”

“Oh, good!” a voice interjected before Keith could say anything else, and he saw the nametag that read  _ Brenda _ first. “Lance, I’m sorry to pull you away, but can you come up front to open another register? I’m on my way to break, and Lucy’s line was getting long.”

“Oh, yeah, sure,” Lance nodded. Brenda grinned, thanked him, and waved at Keith, giggling as she walked away. 

“She recognized me,” Keith observed.

“She did,” Lance agreed solemnly, then stretched. “Anyway, I’d better get up there. Lucy is pretty new so she’s a little slower on the register. Thanks for pulling me away for a while, Keithy-poo! I’ll see you later tonight?”

“Get back to work,” Keith smiled at him, nudging Lance with his shoulder. Lance laughed and clapped him on the back, heading up the aisle towards the front.

When Keith made his way up later, he slid into Lucy’s line. She was a little slower than Lance, so by the time Keith, who had been third in her line, had paid for everything, Lance had just waved away the fifth, and last, person in his line. Keith spotted Rax, starting a beeline for the registers, eyes set on Lance, and finally figured out what he was going to do.

“Hey, Lance,” he stepped aside so that the next person could step up to the register. Lance turned, with a glance at Rax, before grinning back. Keith leaned down to scratch Blue, who was excitedly bouncing around his feet.

“Forget something?”

“Yeah,” Keith said, his heart thumping in his chest. And then he stood and grabbed the front of Lance’s shirt, pulling him down a little in order to kiss him. Lance made a strangled sound in the back of his throat that Keith took to be surprise, but he didn’t blame Lance at all. His own face was burning, so he couldn’t imagine what he would have done had their roles been reversed. 

When he stepped away from Lance, he winked. With a wave and a smile, Keith added, “See you tonight,  _ babe. _ ”

He stepped outside without waiting for any kind of response and took a deep breath.

Lance later thanked Keith for getting Rax off his back, his ears redder than Keith had ever seen them, and they avoided that topic of conversation for the rest of the night, but he found himself hoping that it wasn’t just him that felt something shifting in their relationship.

Red started to be a constant companion in the studio. She would curl up in their laps and watch what they were doing when she could, or she’d bask in the natural light streaming through the window while she lounged on the sill. Her presence made Lance grin, and when she walked over to him, purring as she rubbed up against his legs, he’d lean down to scratch behind her ears. He was a little clumsy and Keith blamed the fact that he was a dog person, but Red didn’t seem to mind too much. She seemed to like Lance even better than she liked Keith, sometimes, but she made up for the cold shoulder when she curled up next to him when they’d returned to the apartment.

Whenever they were out of the studio, Blue was usually with them. She was energetic and affectionate, nearly always finding a way to give Keith a slobbery kiss before they parted ways. She gamboled around the park on the days that they chose to work there, and she always seemed to know if anything was bothering either one of them. She nuzzled them with her wet nose and offered excited yips, and somehow she always helped bring a smile to his face. The effect she had on Lance was even greater, and his smile and laughter would light up the studio later.

On the nineteenth day of working, Allura dropped in to see how they were moving along. 

The studio had been transformed, where about a third of what had been Keith’s side of the room was now organized how Lance liked it, with what seemed like a permanent home for all of his watercolor supplies. Keith didn’t mind that, and he rather liked working with Lance in the room, even if they were both working on separate pieces. Shiro was working on helping Allura curate the gallery more often and hardly worked on his own art, so the studio space that had once been lively with brotherly banter had fallen silent and a little lonely.

He liked listening to Lance humming to himself as he worked, the steady clatter of a paintbrush going back into the tray, or the light sound of water when he rinsed a brush behind him. It made the studio feel  _ alive _ again, so he wasn’t at all opposed when Allura slipped a key to the space into Lance’s hand.

Day twenty-three marked the day that Keith decided his portion was done. They were less than a week from the show, and Lance had mostly wrapped up his process the day before, after coming in almost every day since Allura had given him a key. Keith was alone when he finished, waiting for Lance to come in once he was off work, and he stood back to look at it.

Nearly two months had passed, and now the show was upon them. Looking at the triptych they’d created, together, Keith felt a little pride swelling in his chest. It had been unusual to combine two fairly dissimilar styles in the beginning, but looking at it now, he liked what they had accomplished. Sure, there were some places that might seem rough around the edges, especially where the watercolor turned to oil in the center, but they hadn’t given up. They had shared style tips and had used those in the center, combining their styles in every way they could. Lance had helped a little with the oil paints, even though it was out of his comfort zone, and Keith had done a little with watercolor. At first, he wasn’t sure how it would turn out, but with all three pieces on adjacent easels, Keith was actually pretty satisfied with the end result.

All that was left was to wait for Lance and see if there were any last minute corrections to be made.

* * *

 

“Oh my  _ god, _ ” Lance groaned, watching Keith pace across the  _ Juniberries _ entryway for what  _ had _ to have been the hundredth time. “Keith, there’s still two hours before the opening!”

“I  _ know _ ,” he shot back, “I’m just  _ nervous _ !”

For Keith to be able to say something like that outright spoke volumes about how far they’d come, Lance decided abruptly. In the beginning, Keith never would have admitted as much, and from the look on Shiro’s face he was almost as surprised as Lance was. Not that either one of them was caught off guard by Keith’s nerves–Shiro had warned Lance that Keith got this way right before a show, after all.

When Shiro had warned Lance, though, Lance had started to come up with a plan. He’d been pretty unsure about it for the last two weeks, but that reservation had been hard to come by and he wasn’t about to back out after all the trouble he’d gone through. 

_ Don’t make it awkward _ , he pleaded internally.  _ Please don’t let this get awkward. _

“Well, let’s just go, then,” he forced the words out, squaring his shoulders in determination. “C’mon, let’s go to dinner on me. We’ve still got plenty of time, and we’ll still be back in time for the show. You haven’t eaten all day and neither have I.”

Keith blinked, reminding Lance of a gaping fish, before starting to protest.

“Nope! I insist,  _ mi corazón _ ,” he slipped his arm through Keith’s, trying to stay suave. “We’ve definitely got to go grab something to eat. I’m starving, you’re starving, you need to relax, and I’ve already got reservations!”

“You  _ what _ ?” Keith demanded, looking up at Lance in surprise. “Lance–”

“C’mon,” Lance tugged Keith gently toward the door, and then winked. “It’s a date,  _ babe _ .”

Keith allowed himself to be pulled out into the street without protest, and Lance’s heart skipped a beat.


	5. Chapter 5

Allura’s preferred catering company had arrived while Lance and Keith were off on their dinner date, and when they slipped back into  _ Juniberries _ , they spotted the table set up to one side of the showroom door. Lance was tempted to start on the wine early, but he caught Allura’s eyes and decided against that.

“So our artists finally decided to show up,” she announced, crossing her arms. Lance would have been intimidated if she didn’t have a twinkle in her eye and a grin on her lips. “We have forty-five minutes until the show, and if you hadn’t noticed, we already have people waiting outside. I wonder how it would have looked if you showed up any later?”

“They would have talked to you and Shiro and my man Coran, Princess, and everything would have been fine!” Lance waved his hand dismissively, beaming at her. “You know more about my stuff than I do, I swear.”

“We only left when we did because I dragged him out,” Keith added, glancing over at Lance. There was a hint of jest in his tone and a fondness in his glance, and Lance felt himself bubbling with glee.

“So I have Keith to thank for your timely return, and Lance to blame for leaving in the first place. This is good information.”

“Oh, come on, ‘Lura!” Lance whined a little, playfully. “Does it hurt to relax before a show?”

A gentle hand fell on her shoulder and Shiro, beaming at both of them, interceded on their behalf. “Of course it doesn’t hurt, and they made it back with plenty of time to spare. I’m sure they’ll be better about it in the future, so let’s just let it slide this time, alright?”

With a light laugh, Allura shook her head and caved. “Fine! You’re off the hook  _ this time _ , boys, but don’t let me catch you slacking again tonight or you’ll get to serve as my janitorial staff tonight!”

“Yessir!” Lance pulled himself straight, finally separating his arm from Keith’s to throw up a mock salute. “I will be on my best behavior tonight!”

Allura rolled her eyes, but Coran came up to clap him on the shoulder. “Thattaboy, Lance! Why, when I was a youth, I remember my very first gallery opening! I wasn’t a headlining artist, by any means, but I arrived only ten minutes before it opened, and Allura’s great-grandfather gave a tongue lashing I will  _ never _ forget! I almost wished that a pack of raging yalmors was chasing me instead of having my best friend’s grandfather scold me. He was an intimidating man, you know.”

“Coran, that’s enough,” Allura called him off, and Lance breathed a sigh of relief. If Coran really got on a roll about the good ol’ days, it could take ages for him to get tired of it, and Lance didn’t have that kind of time or patience. He might be in an especially good mood after taking Keith to dinner–even if his bank account was going to regret that reservation for the next month–but tales of Coran’s youth could still tire him out. “I need Lance and Keith to decide how they want to open the gallery to the public once and for all. I know we’ve talked about it briefly, but it’s time to make a few final decisions.”

“I still think we should string a tape up and cut it with some giant scissors,” Lance’s hands fell to his hip. He’d tried this tactic three times in the last week, and every time it had been shot down, so he had no expectations. He wasn’t even particularly attached to the idea, if he was honest, but he liked to see how far he could push.

“No,” was Allura’s immediate response, in unison with Keith.

“Keithy-poo, I feel so  _ betrayed _ ,” he clutched the shirt over his heart before remembering that Hunk had just ironed that two days ago before he and Pidge had left for their robotics competition, and then he smoothed it back out and readjusted his tie. “Of all people to shoot me down, it’s my own partner?”

Keith rolled his eyes in a manner similar to Allura’s earlier action. “Lance, you just want to do it because it’s so over the top.”

_ Guilty _ . And he could tell that Keith knew it, too.

“It’s flashy and it gets attention,” he provided, shrugging. “What’s not to like?”

“You should just say something, Allura,” Keith sighed, shaking his head at Lance. “It is your gallery, after all, and you’re a better spokesperson than either of us. You can introduce the show, talk it up, and then introduce us as the artists and officially open the show. It doesn’t have to be a big to-do or anything, you know.”

“Let’s do that,” Lance agreed without a fuss, nodding. “It’s simpler that way. Plus, isn’t that what you usually do anyway? Don’t change it up on our account.”

She shook her head, sighing. There was a grin, though, so Lance didn’t worry too much about it. She’d probably been expecting them to do something along those lines, anyway. 

“Fine, I’ll introduce your show. Is there anything in particular you guys want me to say?”

“Just say whatever you want,” Keith shrugged.

“Yeah. Maybe talk about how you thought the two styles would look good together and how you hand picked us,” Lance waggled his eyebrows at her teasingly. “Make sure the press knows that we’re your favorites, and all that.”

“Ignore him,” Keith quipped, giving Lance a light shove.

“She probably will,” he shrugged, dropping his arm around Keith’s shoulders. “Let’s look at the gallery for a few minutes and make sure that nothing’s been knocked crooked since we put them up earlier, yeah?”

Allura shook her head again as they walked away, and Shiro laughed.

“Don’t encourage them,” he heard Allura scold.

“I’m doing no such thing,” Shiro shot back, mirth still in his tone.

Their exchange faded into the background as he and Keith stepped into the gallery. Lance still couldn’t get over the fact that the entire room was full of his work and Keith’s work. The last time he’d had artwork up here, it had been the new artists competition that he’d lost to Keith, and it felt incredibly surreal to be working together with Keith...and to maybe, just  _ maybe  _ be a little more than colleagues, now. He wasn’t going to push  _ that  _ particular subject until after this opening was over, though.

He’d just have to deal with the excitement, the anticipation, that filled his stomach with butterflies until then. No big deal.

Instead, Lance watched as Keith looked around the gallery, allowing his arm to fall from Keith’s shoulders. Keith glanced at him for a moment, questioningly, then turned his attention back to the paintings on the walls. He started a slow walk around the room and Lance fell in step beside him, an amiable silence falling between them.

They had walked halfway around the room in silence when Keith paused, looking up at Lance’s painting of Varadero beach. It was the one that Keith had recognized him for, and Lance kind of suspected it was Keith’s favorite of all of his works, but he didn’t mind. It was his personal favorite, too.

After a long moment, Keith broke the silence, glancing up at Lance.

“Thanks.”

Lance blinked, surprised, as he looked back down at Keith. “For what?”

“For...well, for giving me a chance to begin with, even if I wasn’t exactly nice to you. And for helping me relax before the show. The date. Just...everything, I guess.”

_ That’s not fair _ , was Lance’s immediate thought as a light flush darkened his cheeks.  _ He’s not allowed to pull something like that! _

“You mean, ‘ _ thanks, Lance, for being an insufferable annoyance and not giving me a chance to run away’ _ , right? I know, I have that effect on people,” he made light of the situation instead, grinning at his own expense.

“No, Lance, I mean it,” Keith shook his head, frowning at Lance. “Thank you.”

Lance, unused to such sincerity, felt the heat in his cheeks and suddenly became very interested in his shoes. After a few beats of silence, he managed a soft, “I should really be thanking you, though. For letting me in, even though I was just that annoying guy with the dog that liked to knock you down. For not pushing me away, even though you had every right to. For giving  _ me _ a chance…”

...to do what? Make an ass of himself? Check, check, and check. He’d already done that.

“Fine, then. You’re welcome. But all of that is just because you’re  _ you _ . Now accept my gratitude already, Lance.”

At the fierce look on Keith’s face, Lance laughed a little. With his pulse thrumming in his ears and more confident than he usually felt, he reached forward and slowly took Keith’s hand in his. Keith didn’t pull his hand away; he shifted his hand and allowed their fingers to slot together, and a lump rose in Lance’s throat. He managed to speak around it anyway.

“Thanks for everything,” he smiled and squeezed Keith’s hand. “And you’re welcome.”

“That’s more like it,” Keith shot back, but his hand squeezed back. Lance tried to suppress the giddiness that was rising and succeeded, to a point. 

In that moment, more than before, he wanted to ask where they stood, but decided against it. There would be a better time to discuss whatever it was, but that time was not right before the gallery opening. That kind of discussion was best left for a time and place removed from  _ Juniberries _ , where they could talk in private.

At least he finally knew what he wanted, though.

Lance wanted this feeling–the contentment of Keith’s hand in his. He wanted the banter, the steady flow of teasing and playful insults that perpetuated any space they shared. The squabbling and bickering that came along if they disagreed on something even as trivial as what takeout they were going to order while working or about whether plain coffee or a latte of some sort was the superior drink. It wasn’t the fairytale romance he had dreamed of in his younger days, for sure, but it was something uniquely  _ theirs _ , and he wanted to see where it could take them.

It was yet another thing to think about later, when they didn’t have to prepare for tonight’s opening in just twenty minutes. For now, he was satisfied that they  _ would _ have that discussion, especially since Keith was still in possession of his hand and was gently pulling Lance around the room. He was probably making sure all the paintings were straight or in the right position, but Lance had stopped fretting and simply allowed himself to enjoy the moment.

If anyone had anything to say when Keith and Lance exited the gallery hand in hand a few minutes later, they kept it to themselves. It was possible that they hadn’t even noticed, since people were milling about the lobby now, helping themselves to light finger foods from the snack table while Coran guarded one door and Shiro the other. Allura was mingling, a wide smile on her face as she laughed and flitted through the crowd.

With a shared glance, Keith and Lance came to an unspoken agreement and reluctantly pulled their hands apart. Lance immediately missed the comfort of Keith’s hand in his, but he didn’t say as much. Instead, he hitched a grin onto his features and stepped forward into the people milling about, only just starting to realize they were more numerous than he’d initially thought. His heart skipped a beat in nervous anticipation, but he made his way over to where Allura had been drawn into a conversation with someone she seemed to know. When he turned, Lance thought the man looked familiar. He made a beeline for the duo, since no one really knew who he was just yet, and sidled up.

“Hey, Princess,” he greeted Allura, and she turned her pretty smile on him as it morphed into a frown.

“How many times do I have to tell you not to call me that?” she demanded.

“At least a hundred  _ thousand _ more,” he chirped back, beaming. “Whatcha talking about?”

“We were just discussing the show,” her companion answered, smiling and offering a hand. “You must be Lance McClain, the watercolorist, right?”

Blinking, Lance accepted his hand and shook, nodding. “Yep, that’s me.”

“His attitude leaves much to be desired–” 

“ _ Hey _ !” Lance interjected, but was promptly ignored.

“–but his work is of exceptional quality,” Allura gave a little, satisfied smile that actually warmed Lance to the core.  _ Whoa _ . Allura had a lot of faith in him, and that gave him pause. It wasn’t really something he’d ever expected. He had to pull himself together to catch her words when she continued. “With a few more years and a more expansive portfolio, I believe we could see some of his work in any one of the  _ Voltron _ Art Alliance’s galleries. We don’t have many watercolor painters with such a grasp over the medium, after all.”

_ Ay por dios _ , that kind of praise could kill a man.

Lance shook himself and forced a light laugh. “Oh, please, Keith will make it into the Alliance before you can even blink! I appreciate the thought though, ‘Lura. I’ll work hard so I don’t let you down, but don’t get discouraged if it takes more than a few years. That’s a lot of ground to cover!”

“Stop selling yourself short,” were the words that accompanied a sharp elbow in his side. Lance hadn’t seen Keith step up, but the fierce glare he’d earned from him made him offer a sheepish grin. “Ignore him, Thace, he’s always like this.”

“Keith,” the man, Thace, nodded. Lance seemed to recall that the owner of  _ Marmora _ was named Thace, too, so that must be why he was familiar. “I have to agree with you. From what I’ve seen of your work, Mr. McClain, you don’t give yourself enough credit.”

“Lance,” he piped up instantly, then backpedaled a little. “Please, just Lance. Mr. McClain is for my father and my uncle and maybe my older brother, but I’m just Lance.”

“Lance, then,” Thace agreed amiably.

“And thanks,” Lance added sheepishly, rubbing the back of his neck. A quick glance at the delicate clock on the wall gave him a good excuse for redirecting, though, and he took it. “Anyway, it’s about time to get this show rolling, isn’t it?”

Allura gave him a look that told him she knew this tactic–he tended to avoid when people talked about his art or complimented it if he could, and she was not amused. Even though this was the first time he’d headlined a show, he’d still been friends with her for long enough that she scolded him for it. It was just easier to talk about other people or redirect because he hated being embarrassed, and praise always did the job.

Fortunately for him, since it wasn’t just Allura but also his show partner eyeing him in a way that said  _ I have a lot of things to say to you _ , he wasn’t wrong.

“We’ll continue our conversation later, then,” Thace inclined his head politely, stepping away to allow Allura and the two artists by. Lance only just realized that they were standing just beyond the small group gathered at the triptych and discussing it in low voices. The spot where they would introduce the show.

“Yes, please!” Allura’s smile was back. “Thank you for coming tonight, Thace. I know Fridays are a busy night over at  _ Marmora _ , so it means a lot that you’re here.”

And then she motioned to the two of them, and Lance wrapped his fingers around Keith’s for just a moment, squeezing lightly both to help soothe his own nerves and maybe Keith’s, too. He let his hand fall fairly soon after, curling his fingers at his side, but Keith smiled up at him, and Lance grinned back.

“Ready?” he asked as they followed Allura toward the entrance.

“As I’ll ever be,” Keith breathed out in response, and they shared a slightly nervous laugh.

Together, they stepped up beside Allura as she called for attention, one on either side and corresponding to which portion of the triptych they had been responsible for, and the true test of the night began.

* * *

 

Keith watched from across the room, in a brief lull between conversing with the people wandering the gallery, as Lance talked passionately about one of his pieces. It looked like one of Blue sleeping, the colors soft and cheerful, and Keith remembered how excited Lance had been the first time he’d told him about it, too. Their eyes met across the room and Lance’s grin grew wider before he returned his attention to his conversation partner, and Keith smiled despite himself.

The night was drawing to a close, with only a few stragglers remaining in the gallery, and Keith slipped out into the lobby for a drink. Allura was mingling with a few donors near the doors, arm tucked through Shiro’s as she sipped on her wine. It was a sure sign that the night was winding down, but when he thought about Lance in the other room, he didn’t want it to end.

Shaking his head, Keith helped himself to a glass of wine.

As he sipped at the moscato, he decided that this had been a good opening. With Lance to share some of the conversation, it was easier to field questions and just  _ breathe _ while people were coming in. Lance was a born conversationalist, even if he stuck his foot in his mouth more often than most. He just had a charisma that kept people entertained, as well as keeping Keith from feeling too overwhelmed by everything. He was forced to admit that, had he been doing the show on his own, he wasn’t sure he’d feel so content afterwards. 

He was sure that Lance was partly to blame. After taking him out to eat before the show and helping him relax, Lance was probably a major catalyst in how good Keith felt. Crowds and Keith didn’t exactly mix well, but this time had been an exception.

Keith tipped the wine glass back just as the clock chimed eleven, signalling the time that  _ Juniberries  _ was supposed to close its doors. Seeming to recall that information herself, Allura stood up straighter where she was still in conversation across the room, though she kept her arm tucked in Shiro’s.

“Unfortunately, everyone,” she said in a tone that carried, even as Lance and the remaining few from the showroom trickled back into the lobby, “ _ Juniberries _ must close for the evening. The show will be here for six weeks, so feel free to stop by again, and do tell your friends!”

Lance stepped up beside Keith and nudged him lightly with a shoulder, mouthing, ‘ _ We survived _ !’ with an obnoxious grin even as he turned to thank the stragglers. Keith found his voice and did the same, shaking hands and telling people to come again until it was just the caterers, finishing with their packing, and those involved with the gallery’s operation.

“Now that that’s settled,” Allura stretched, finally pulling her arm from Shiro’s, “it’s time to finish up here. Thanks for your hard work, Keith, Lance. You guys can go ahead and go, now. You must be exhausted!”

“What, no, we should help clean up!” Lance frowned. “I mean, you gave us this chance, so it’s only fair–”

He stopped when Shiro reached out and put a hand on his shoulder with that calm grin he had. “We’ll be fine here. You guys were more nervous than we were, so you’re probably even more tired. Go home and get some rest.”

“You can help me out at the shop tomorrow if you really want!” Coran quipped in, though his tone was teasing. “I think I’ll have you clean the litterboxes and scrub the floor around them really well, just as a precaution!”

“Noted,” Lance’s voice turned a little stiff and he looped his arm through Keith’s. “Let’s go, Keithy-poo, they’ve obviously got everything under control!”

Keith allowed himself to be pulled, merely waving in farewell over his shoulder as the chime above the door jingled. He did shift his arm to make Lance’s grip more comfortable, but allowed Lance to lead them around the square, the  _ Voltron _ statue designed by Allura’s father, Alfor, standing proudly in the middle. 

As if thinking along the same lines, admiring the statue in the streetlights, Lance led the way across the pavement, only slowing once they had rounded the base and reached the front of  _ Voltron _ .

“Y’know, Allura said that her dad had plans to make five lion statues, too,” he mused. “Since Voltron is supposed to be formed from five alien lion super robots, according to all of Alfor’s plans. It’s a pretty cool story.”

Keith knew that. Shiro had told him before, and he’d been grudgingly fascinated. 

“I’d like to see them,” Lance added when Keith remained quiet. “I wish I had talent as a sculptor. I’d petition Allura for the right to help make them. We’d put them in a V-formation around Voltron, and put an inscription describing how Voltron forms and what each lion stands for.”

“Well, maybe we’ll pick up sculpting,” Keith tried to be lighthearted about it, but Lance’s wistful tone made him almost wish for the same thing. “We’ll petition Allura for the right to do it when we’re in our fifties, after spending the next thirty years learning how.”

It got a laugh out of Lance, and that’s all Keith had really been hoping for.

“I claim Blue, then. The blue lion is supposed to be the right leg, if I remember right. She’s mine. She just feels so...accepting. Plus, she and Blue seem like they’d be really similar. It feels right.”

“Then I’ll claim the red one.”

“Red seems pretty fitting for you,” Lance agreed with another laugh. They fell into silence, looking up at  _ Voltron _ , and Keith wondered if they were both picturing the five lions arrayed around them, too. 

After several moments, Keith finally spoke up.

“I don’t want to go home.”

The words surprised even him, and if the way Lance turned to look at him, blue eyes wide in the streetlights, he assumed they’d caught him off guard, too. He looked back up at Alfor’s legacy then, ignoring the way Lance was still looking at him. He was afraid his embarrassment would show on his features, and he didn’t want that.

“Why don’t you come over to my house?” 

The words were tentative, and when Keith snapped his attention to Lance, he was rubbing his neck as his cheeks tinged red. 

_ Cute _ .

He tried, and failed, to quash the thought. 

“I-I mean, I’d love to crush you at Smash and MarioKart, and I’m not tired yet, and–”

“Sure,” Keith interrupted. As amusing as it would be to watch Lance stumble through all of his excuses, Keith didn’t particularly need to hear them. “And I think it’s  _ you _ that’s gonna be crushed, Lance. I may not have played in years, but I don’t get rusty.”

“You’re about to put your money where your mouth is, buddy!”

Lance was tugging him along again, but Keith found he didn’t mind, so long as they were going somewhere together.

* * *

 

“I can’t believe–!” Lance cried indignantly. This was the second cup, and somehow Keith was still beating him in almost every race except for the Daisy Cruiser, and it was  _ inhuman _ how good be was. But then Keith laughed–a cheerful sound that made Lance’s stomach twist in knots–and he couldn’t find the heart to be actually offended. 

_ How did I fall this hard? _ he tried asking himself, but instead of overthinking it, he reached out with his left hand to try and knock the controller from Keith’s grasp.

“Hey! Lance, what the hell?!” Keith bit out, leaning away to continue the race. “That’s cheating!  _ Cheating _ !”

“House rules: there are  _ no _ rules!” Lance chimed back, barely able to keep his character on the road with one hand as he continued to sabotage his opponent. 

The  _ Final Lap! _ legend popped up on the screen and Lance cursed, abandoning all hope from 7th position to turn and lunge at Keith’s controller. The look on the other man’s face was priceless as Lance grasped the red plastic and tried to tear it from his hands with a smirk. Keith tugged it back towards himself, ignoring the way that Lance was half sprawled across his lap in order to keep racing.

Lance did not give in easily.

He heard Keith gasp when he wrapped his arms firmly around Keith’s middle and lifted, spinning Keith so that his back was to the television. Their legs were tangled awkwardly, but Lance would take it–victory was victory. With a self-satisfied smile at his success, he tried to figure out what clever comeback to use as Keith cursed and struggled to turn around and finish the race.

“Noooope!” Lance laughed, reaching out for the controller again, smothering the buttons and trying to wrench the piece of plastic from the other artist’s firm grip. “This is the computer’s race!”

“Dammit, Lance, my high score!” Keith struggled for a few moments until he heard the sound of the race ending, and craning his neck around as Lance peered out around him, he groaned. “Ugh, are you happy?”

Lance opened his mouth to reply when Keith shifted, trying to untangle his legs from Lance’s, and ended up pitching forward. Lance’s back ended up against the couch they’d been sitting in front of, and Keith’s hand, still grasping the controller, crashed into Lance’s chest. He winced at the impact of the hard plastic and sucked in a breath, trying to recover from the sudden loss of air. Keith caught himself with a hand on the couch cushions and stared, wide-eyed, down at Lance.

“I, uh,” Keith started, but he couldn’t seem to find words. Lance didn’t particularly blame him.

He was too preoccupied with finding the constellations in Keith’s eyes, which seemed to shine even in the dim lighting of the game cave. Maybe it was all of Pidge’s tech on the back wall, the blinking lights reflecting in Keith’s violet irises, but all the same, Lance was unable to look away. From the lashes that delicately framed them to the few freckles that littered his cheeks, Keith was breathtaking, and Lance was in way too deep. The way that Keith was practically straddling him–which, Lance recalled, was all his fault–made for a sizeable lump in his throat that he could scarcely breathe past, and it left their noses a meager two inches apart.

He thought of pulling away, but Keith still hadn’t moved. In fact, Keith seemed to be just as transfixed as Lance was, and his stomach gave a hopeful lurch that even their date hadn’t been able to produce.

Lance found his hands lifting, feeling the material of the shirt that covered Keith’s hips beneath his fingers, and heard Keith’s breath hitch just a split second before he closed his eyes against the vision before him and tilted his chin up to press his lips firmly against Keith’s. After a few short moments, he heard the sound of Keith’s controller clattering softly to the ground and felt a palm replace it against his chest, and then Keith was kissing him back. His hand from the couch curled around the back of Lance’s neck, and Lance tightened his fingers almost subconsciously on Keith’s hips. 

Keith pulled away first, and when Lance opened his eyes he found him searching. Searching for what, Lance wasn’t quite sure, but when Keith’s lips quirked in a grin that was more like a smirk, Lance assumed he’d found it.

“I win this round by default,  _ cheater _ ,” he breathed, rather than remark on whatever it was he’d found.

“I’m fine with that,” Lance responded. “Even though there can’t be cheating if the house rules are  _ no rules _ .”

Keith snorted and rolled his eyes, but then he leaned back down to close the distance and Lance didn’t have any objection to that.

 

 

Lance never gave the spare key to the studio back, and no one asked him to.

**Author's Note:**

> This entire fic was loosely inspired by my Miraculous Ladybug fic, _Tikki's New Friend_. Very loosely inspired. And it's also a sort of gift to my friend Erin, because she's the one who prompted me to write it, and that's why I picked it as my General Big Bang fic! 
> 
> As always, hit me up on tumblr on [battleshidge](http://battleshidge.tumblr.com) or on my main at [panda013](http://panda013.tumblr.com)!
> 
> And please do check out the fanart by [artsanpuc101](http://artsanpuc101.tumblr.com)! The original art post is [here](http://artsanpuc101.tumblr.com/post/164007237693/a-thousand-words-for-the-voltron-big-bang-2017)! Please give Christina some love!!!


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